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ADDRESSES ^>f .^ V 

AND 



LITERARY CONTRIBUTIONS 

ON THE 

THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY-TWO 

BY 

CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW 



* 



jjJ>OJ^ 



" Keep A-Goin' " 

If yon strike a thorn or rose, 
If it hails or if it snows, 

Keep a-goin' ! 
'Tain't no use to sit and whine 
When the fish ain't on your Hnc, 
Bait your hook and keep a-tryin'. 

Keep a-goin' ! 

When the weather kills your crop, 
When you tumble from the top, 

Keep a-goin' ! 
S'pose you're out o' every dime, 
Bein' so ain't any crime, 
Tell the world you're feelin' prime, 

Keep a-goin' ! 

When it looks like all is up, 

Keep a-goin' ! 
Drain the sweetness from the cup, 

, Keep a-goin' ! 
See the wild birds on the wing, 
Hear the bells that sweetly ring, 
When you feel like sighin', sing. 
Keep a-goin' ! 

By permission of the author, Mr. Frank L. Stanton. 



, ■;" •' »-^' 



SPEECH BY THE HON. CHAUNCEY M. 
DEPEW on His Eightieth Birthday at the 
Montauk Club of Brooklyn, April 25, 1914, 
being the Twenty-third Annual Birthday 
Dinner given Him by this Club. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Montauk Club : It 
is self-evident that these celebrations must find me eighty. 
That period has arrived and as they reckoned in the ancient 
times on the twenty-third day of April in the year of our 
Lord one thousand nine hundred and fourteen (this is an 
incident) and the twenty-third of the annual dinners by the 
Montauk Club in honor of his birthday (this is important) 
— Chauncey M. Depew became eighty years of age. The 
club chronicler will rfecord that he was in all respect in as good 
condition as on the first of these happy events nearly a quarter 
of a century ago. There is only one minor note in our joy, and 
that is the absence of so many who were in that original 
charming company. But their places have been taken by their 
sons, and to me the first of these remarkable gatherings is so 
recreated that I seem to be greeted and welcomed by the same 
good fellows and cordial friends. 

Eighty seems to be universally regarded as a sort of 
almost impossible climacteric. In all countries and among 
all peoples it is an event, and as everybody is hoping to reach 
the same age, the days of the man of eighty are shortened by 
everybody anxiously asking, "How did you do it? Give us the 
combination." 

The Psalmist gave distinction to this age by his decla- 
ration in the ninetieth psalm, "The days of our age are three 
score and ten and though men be so strong that they come 
to four score years, yet is their strength then but labor and 
sorrow; so soon passeth it away and we are gone." But 



times were far different when the Psahnist wrote. The sanita- 
tion of to-day, the methods for preserving health, the wonder- 
ful discoveries in medicine and surgery, the elimination of per- 
ils to life and eugenics were then unknown. It is a trib- 
ute to their outdoor life that any of them lived to seventy. 
No one, even with all the knowledge and skill in our day, could 
hope to reach eighty if he enjoyed all the pleasures of David, 
nor would we even at seventy be improved by the remedy 
King David's physicians devised to keep him warm. John 
Bigelow writing his memoirs at ninety-two was as cheerful, 
hopeful, charming and inspiring a man as I knew of any 
age, and for ten years showed no sign that beyond eighty "his 
strength was but labor and sorrow." Neither did Gladstone 
whom I met in the flush of his great victory at eighty-three. 
The German Ambassador records that Thiers at eighty-four 
in his discussions with him, which saved France, was the 
liveliest and ablest Frenchman whom he had met. I found 
Lord Halsbury, ex-Lord Chancellor of England, one of the 
most active and interesting of men at eighty-five, and now 
at eighty-seven he is writing a monumental work, the revision 
and codification of the laws of England. Lord Palmerston, 
when Prime Minister at eighty-three, said that the prime of 
life was seventy-nine, and Sir William Crooks, the scientist, 
says he has at eighty-one been so absorbed in the marvels 
of science and its possibilities that age has never occurred 
to him and he has laid out work which will require fifty years 
to complete. As an example from the industrial world, I was 
associated as an Attorney with Commodore Vanderbilt during 
the later years of his life. He was more alert, wise and effi- 
cient at eighty than at any period and the acknowledged leader 
in the railway enterprises of that time. 

A few years ago gray hairs were a fatal handicap to ciu- 
ployment. Professor Osier did a good service for the un- 
employed when he declared that at sixty we should be chloro- 
formed. It led to wide and universal discussion and developed 
the fact that the best work in every department of human 
endeavor is done by men over fifty. Our Presidents are 
vigorous illustrations. Taft was never so active as now, 
Colonel Roosevelt is hailed as the most active and resourceful 



man of our time, and Wilson leads his Party and Congress, 
with the same ohedience from both, as Napoleon had from 
the Old Guard. Edison told me twenty-odd years ago that 
he intended to bring grand opera within the reach and enjoy- 
ment of the masses in city and country. The cinematograph 
would put upon the film the moving picture of JMelba, Patti or 
Caruso in action, while the phonograph would at the moment 
record the voice. He thought he could make the illusion so 
perfect that there would be no difference in expression, ges- 
ture, action and voice between the living presentation at the 
opera and its mimic reproduction on the village stage. Since 
that conversation the great wizard has given to the world 
many inventions of inestimable value, but always working 
on his original idea, he celebrated his sixty-seventh l)irthday 
last month by laboring in his laboratory to perfect this marvel. 

The Supreme Court of the United States is the most 
powerful judicial body in the v/orld. Its Judges were never 
worked so hard nor more efificicnt than now. Chief Justice 
White is brilliantly meeting the responsibilities and performing 
tlie duties of his great oftlce at sixty-seven, and the Associate 
Justices illustrate the value of maturity with wisdom, discretion 
and fearless patience. 

The seven wonders of the world which engrossed the 
admiration of the ancients, and the seven wonders of the 
Renaissance period seem trivial compared with the achieve- 
ments of the period in which it has been my privilege to live 
and work. I was thirteen years old when the Hudson River 
Railroad completed its first forty miles from New York to 
Peekskill. I remember as if it were yesterday the great 
crowds from fifty miles around, the wild excitement of the 
I)eople as the train rolled into the station grounds and the 
shouts and screams as the whistle blew, while drivers could 
not control their horses. In describing the scene at a dinner 
in Europe last summer, I said that the last seen or heard of 
a prosperous farmer whose blooded team bolted when the 
whistle of the locomotive blew was his hair flying in the 
wind as his horses were running away over the hill, and they 
doubtless were running still. "That is impossible, sir," said a 
grave banker. "That happened sixty-six years ago." That 



forty-four miles of railroad has expanded into a system of 
twenty thousand, and that boy became and was for thirteen 
years its President. It was one of the first of the network of 
rails which ties the West, the Northwest and the Pacific to 
New York, and which have developed the wilderness into pop- 
ulous and prosperous communities and made the City of New 
York the metropolis of the western hemisphere and a finan- 
cial and industrial center second to none in the world. 

We have become so familiar with the telephone and it 
has become such a necessity in our family, social and business 
life, that we seem always to have had it, but Graham Bell's 
invention was made only thirty-seven years ago, and the 
phonograph was revealed to the world by Edison one year 
later in 1877. Roentgen discovered the X-rays in 1895, only 
seventeen years ago, and their use in surgery has been one 
of the blessings of the age. It is only recently that we have 
photographs of daring operators, who are encountering perils 
unknown to the hunter or explorer, in revealing to the world 
wild beasts at rest and in attack, volcanoes in eruption, and 
shells exploding on battlefields with the photographer on the 
firing line. It is reported that Villa is accompanied by a cine- 
matograph operator with whom he is in partnership, and that 
the charge may be halted with men dropping dead or wounded 
all about if the films need adjustment. It is only within 
ten years that Marconi has perfected the most beneficent in- 
vention of all time — the wireless telegraph. Within the same 
short period radium has revolutionized science, and added in- 
calculable resources to the equipment of the physician in com- 
bating diseases which have heretofore bafi]ed his skill. Dr. 
Carrel, within the year at the Rockefeller Institute by demon- 
strating that tissues can be kept alive almost indefinitely and 
successfully grafted, has proved that there is certainty in the 
speculations of the possibility of prolonging life. In Febru- 
ary of this year President Wilson pressed the button of the 
electric wire which blew up the Gamboa dam and united the 
waters of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The aspirations 
of Columbus had been attained, the dream of Charles the Fifth 
of Spain realized, but not under the Spanish flag. In the 
month of February four hundred and ninety years before. 



Balboa saw the Pacific from the heights of Darien. He de- 
scended to the shore, and wading into the sea raised his 
sword, proclaiming that the Pacific ocean and all lands ad- 
joining were annexed to Spain. Eight years after, Magellan 
found and added to the crown of Spain the Philippine Is- 
lands. Now, this achievement of the greatest of enterprises 
by a new people with institutions and liberties which Charles 
the Fifth and Ifis successors fought for five hundred years, 
and with a world power and prestige far surpassing that of 
this mighty monarch, and that same people governing and 
preparing the Philippines for self-government, makes us rev- 
erently repeat what Morse said on the success of the telegraph, 
"What God hath wrought." 

Times have greatly changed during my recollections of 
seventy and intense activities of sixty years. We are not 
happier, but have more opportunities for happiness. Unrest 
has kept pace with progress. The atmosphere of the village 
in those earlier days was ideal. There were no very rich 
or very poor. Church-going was universal and there was a 
genuine Christian democracy. There was much more admi- 
ration than envy of the prosperous. Most of the families had 
lived in the village for generations and knowledge of family 
origin and history was destructive of snobbery. The repro- 
ductions of family traits in children and grandchildren culti- 
vated respect for heredity, and the bracing influence of honest 
and enterprising ancestors was recognized. One hundred 
thousand dollars was the limit of the hopes of the most 
successful. There was neither complaint nor discussion of 
the high cost of living, for there was no high living. The 
Lyceum lecture brought to appreciative audiences the best 
writers and thinkers. While I was a youth on the lecture 
committee, we had Ralph Waldo Emerson, Oliver Wendell 
Holmes, Theodore Parker, Henry Ward Beecher, Dr. Storrs, 
Dr. Chapin, Wendell Phillips and nearly every famous writer 
and orator in the country. Literary and dramatic societies 
flourished among the young people, and an excellent circulat- 
ing library was universally patronized. There was little read- 
ing or interest on sociological questions, and the subject of 
sex was not permitted in literature or conversation. But the 



8 

classic authors of the Elizabethan and Queen Anne periods, 
now unknown to the general reader, were eagerly devoured. 
Sir Walter Scott, Fenimore Cooper and Hawthorne were 
favorites, while the oncoming volumes of Dickens and 
Thackeray were eagerly welcomed. The girls could not tango 
or turkey trot, but were graceful in square dances and the 
waltz, and in tlie intervals on the piazza, the staircase or the 
conservatory were equally charming to the college graduate 
or the village swain. They were experts as well in the art 
of the cook, the skill of the dressmaker and the milliner, and 
the economies which get much out of little in comfort and 
show in the early struggling and rising days of the young 
married professional or business man. ^^'hen he had won 
his way as so many did, she was equal to the responsibilities 
of the wife of the statesman or millionaire, and her husband 
gratefully acknowledged the large measure of his success 
which was due to his wife. 

Samuel Woodworth's famous song: 

"The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket, 
The moss-covered bucket which hangs in the well" 

was true then in poetry and fact. It was common all over West- 
chester County. Its cool waters had refreshed Washington 
and Rochambeau as well as the British soldiers. Its vitalizing 
properties have carried to vigorous old age multitudes of men 
and women. 

Driving home after a hot day in Court, I have often 
jumped over a farmer's fence, swung the long pole, dipped 
the old bucket into the well, drew it out and drank from the 
brim. I have never since had a draught of any fluid of any 
kind from anywhere so good and refreshing. Now both well 
and bucket are condemned by the Board of Health, and the 
bucket is found only in the museum with this label on, "An 
antique microbe breeder." 

I heard Dickens lecture, or rather recite his novels. 
The characters were as living realities and as close friends of 
mine as the members of my family. Dickens had rare talents 
both as a speaker and actor. Micawber, Captain Cuttle, Dick 



Sawyer, you saw all in his inimitable impersonations. I had for 
my companion a young lady, a leader of the fashionable set. 
"Plow did you like it?" I said, entranced and delighted. "Oh, 
she remarked coldly, such common people are not in my set, 
and I never expect to meet them." Three husbands, a scandal 
and a divorce were her contributions to a novel of society. 
When a dinner was given to Dickens at the Fifth Avenue 
Hotel, Horace Greeley presided. As he rose to toast the 
guest, he was the personification of Pickwick, and the crowd, 
including Dickens, shouted with joy. I heard Thackeray de- 
liver his lectures — The Four Georges. His big head and mas- 
sive figure vvere very impressive. To hear him was an intel- 
lectual treat, and at the clubs he became one of the most 
popular of visitors. He wanted to do everything Americans 
did, and when his host had a plate of saddle rock oysters 
each as large as his hand put before him, Thackeray asked, 
"What am I to do with these?" "Swallow them whole in 
our way," said his host. Thackeray closed his eyes, and when 
the bivalve disappeared, remarked, "I feel as if I had swal- 
lowed a baby." 

One remarkable change in popular opinion since fifty 
or sixty years ago is the attitude toward rich men. The first 
State Convention I attended as a delegate was in 1858. Ed- 
win D. Morgan was nominated for Governor, because he 
was the wealthiest merchant in New York. It was considered 
most commendable that he was willing to devote to the 
service of the public the talents which had made him suc- 
cessful in business, and he was triumphantly elected. There 
were few millionaires. They were well known and could be 
enumerated on the fingers on one hand. Then they were 
public-spirited citizens, now they are malefactors of great 
wealth. Then the people wanted railroads and the building 
of railroads was a hazardous speculation. They wanted more 
and finer steamboats. They wanted factories in their towns 
and offered every inducement to secure them. They wanted 
water powers improved and natural resources developed. They 
were totally unwilling to tax themselves for these objects, but 
vigorously applauded the men of wealth and enterprise who 
were willino- to take the risks. iNfanv failed and lost evcrv- 



10 

thing. Success was an illustration of the survival of the 
fittest. They were held to be entitled to their wealth and 
became popular idols. 

There has been no greater change in this half century 
than in the attitude of government to business. Business 
is the methods by which the individual alone or in combination 
with others secures the means for the support of himself and 
his family, provides for his old age and its infirmities, and ac- 
cumulates the property which will care for those dependent 
upon him when he is incapacitated or dies. According as he 
is gifted in the use of the money he makes, he adds in various 
degrees wealth to independence. Every step of his advance 
requires help of more people and adds to the amount of em- 
ployment available for their support of other members of the 
community. That there were limitless opportunities for the 
individual has been the pride of our people. Our institutions 
were founded on the individual and the genius of our govern- 
ment was to give him liberty and encouragement. He organ- 
ized and engineered the peopling and development of new 
territories and developed them into sovereign States of the 
American Union. He carried with him the church and the 
schoolhouse. Under his inspiration the units of the State, 
its counties and its towns became miniature commonwealths, 
ruled in their smaller dimensions by the town meeting and the 
more populous by representative government. All admit that 
this process has made the United States the most powerful, 
the freest, the happiest and the most prosperous nation the 
world has ever known. Now there is acute antagonism by 
the government to business. The calendars of the courts 
are crowded with suits under existing laws and the calendars 
of Congress and of the States Legislatures with bills for new 
laws against business. The assembling of legislative bodies 
is viewed with alarm, and the declaration of the President of the 
United States, in his recent message that he would be "kind 
to business," was hailed as a declaration of emancipation. 

The highly organized industrial nations are engaged in 
the fiercest rivalry in their competition for the world's mar- 
kets. This vast interchange has risen in value and volume 
from less than ten thousand millions of dollars fifty years ago 



II 



to twenty-five thousand millions ten years ago, and thirty-five 
thousand millions last year. Our m-ercantile marine fifty 
years ago had sixty-six per cent, of the tonnage of the ocean, 
and now in overseas or foreign freight trade it has less than 
nine per cent. 

Germany has increased her navy and mercantile marine 
by leaps and bounds to add to her foreign commerce and give 
employment to her people at home. The government through 
special rates on its State-owned railways, its subsidies and 
other favors, is practically a partner in its industrial develop- 
ment and exploitation. Great Britain and France are active 
rivals. They encourage big business at home and its exporta- 
tion abroad, and the commanders of their ships and their dip- 
lomatic and consular representatives are eager agents for the 
sale of the products of their factories and the penetration 
of their merchants with their merchandise into every com- 
petitive market in the world. The attitude of our government 
may not be hostile to American citizens and enterprises in 
other lands, but it is not cordial. The doctrine of caveat 
emptor, or in other words at their own risk, is in the position 
of Americans who are thus courageous and enterprising, and 
some of us think also patriotic. But this will not last. Theo- 
ries yield to necessities. A congested population finding the 
home market insufficient for the consumption of the products 
of its industries, will invade other continents and force our 
government to respond to the needs of American enterprise. 

The exemption of our coastwise shipping from tolls on the 
Panama Canal was made under the pretext of a right which 
is denied by the statesmen and diplomats who made the treaty 
and most of our ablest lawyers who have studied it. The de- 
mand of the President for a repeal of the exemption is states- 
manlike and courageous. But the repeal was really a surrender 
by indirection to that governmental assistance by subsidy to 
our mercantile marine, which, if scientifically pursued, will once 
more put our flag on the seas and give us our place among 
mercantile nations. This conversion to old-fashioned protec- 
tion and subsidy under other names is of the Billy Sunday 
rather than the orthodox variety. It may not last, but it 
is progress and enlightenment. Its more recent manifestations 



12 

of twisting the tail of the British Lion and fighting over again 
the battles of Bunker Hill, Saratoga and Yorktown is the 
sugar-coating to the pill — the results are the same. When 
subsidy is denounced as a vice, but under another name is a 
virtue which wins votes, Pope's famous lines occur to me: 

"Vice is a monster of such hated mien 
As to be hated needs but to be seen. 
Yet seen too oft-familiar with her face, 
We first endure, then pity, then embrace." 

The statesmen who are using destructive, instead of 
constructive methods toward business are able and patriotic 
men. But few of them have ever been in touch with af- 
fairs or have any practical knowledge of the vast and com- 
plicated machinery which moves and controls modern credit, 
finance and industry. The two most used and most abused 
words in the language are "efficiency" and "privilege." The 
efficiency expert says to the harassed railway's official or 
manufacturer, "You do not require relief from intolerable 
burdens. If you understood your business, you would carry 
them with ease and profit." Jn other words, speed up labor, 
and this the efficiency fraud knows that labor unions very 
properly will not permit employers, especially corporations, to 
do. Though laws are equal and all have the same chance, 
yet in our new vocabulary prosperity becomes "privilege" and 
dangerous to the public welfare. 

Secretary Lamar of the Cabinet of Mr. Cleveland made a 
speech at a famous dinner in New York. The speeches were 
long and serious. I came on last, and to relieve the situation, 
indulged in some fun at the expense of those who had 
preceded me, including Mr. Lamar. He was much worried 
for fear my forced construction would be taken seriously and 
complained that a Cabinet Minister speaks for his Administra- 
tion and for the time is the mouthpiece of his President. Mr. 
Cleveland enforced this view and told me that <mc of his 
Cabinet, who was to orate on a patriotic occasion in the 
South, submitted to him the manuscript in advance. The 
President said to him: "It is all right, but will take three hours, 



13 

and no New York audience would stand that." To which 
the Minister answered, "In South Carolina an audience wants 
five hours and insists on three." 

That rule of the responsibility of the Cabinet was in 
force long before Mr. Cleveland, but does not prevail with 
the New Freedom. The Postmaster-General advocates the 
taking over by the government of the telegraphs and the 
telephones. Since this was done in England, the telephone 
service has become so bad that churches complain of the 
increase of profanity, and in Paris the service is so im- 
possible that they are in despair of the Republic. The 
deficiencies in operations in both countries are so great that 
they embarrass the finance ministers and the squeeze draws 
another groan of anguish from the taxpayers. It is a step 
in centralization which makes Jefferson a myth and Hamilton 
the guide of our policies. It is not believed that the Presi- 
dent is in sympathy with this far-reaching scheme, but its 
advocacy from such a source adds to uncertainty, and un- 
certainty is the mother of unrest. 

The newspapers reported the Secretary of Labor as pre- 
senting in a speech a new doctrine on property. It was in 
effect that a man's or a woman's title to property depends 
upon the will of the conmiunity. If the neighbors do not 
think the owner makes a use of it which a majority approves, 
they will vote it away. Attach to this doctrine the progressive 
idea of the recall of Judges and decisions and the situation 
is both novel and entertaining. The crowd votes that the 
unpopular man shall be deprived of his home. He appeals 
to the courts, which would decide a man cannot be deprived 
of his property without due compensation. The same crowd 
which voted to take the poor fellow's house or farm vote to 
recall the decision, and it then becomes law. Every expres- 
sion and action of the President is against any such doctrine. 
But it gives a boost to uncertainty and more nerves to unrest. 

I was always fond of the theatre, and the clown at the 
circus is still a delight. I have never seen the equals of the 
early comedians, like John Brougham and Joseph Jefferson. 
The plays which Wallack presented were clean, healthy and 
virile and admirably acted. Daly opened a new vista of en- 



14 

tertainment in his society dramas, with the young actors whom 
he trained and who did such credit to their teacher. It would 
not be possible to find enough people who could have such 
loyalty to' their favorite and hostility to his rival as those who 
created the riot in Astor Place over the merits of Forest or 
Macready. I doubt if the stage ever presented such per- 
fection in the art as Edwin Booth in Richelieu or Hamlet. 
The assassination of President Lincoln by his brother, Wilkes 
Booth, drove Edwin into retirement for some years. We 
formed a strong committee to bring him back. The theatre 
was so ticketed that trouble was impossible and his genius 
made the house wild with enthusiasm. The press took it up, 
and after that he had no trouble. Mrs. Astor, the acknowl- 
edged leader of society, a very brilliant woman, gave a large 
dinner to Booth for help and welcome. At the dinner oc- 
curred a startling example of the things better left unsaid. 
The conversation ran upon when it was best for his reputation 
for an eminent man to die. Illustrations were given of men 
who lost their reputations by living too long. A diplomat 
present said, "The most distinguished example of a man 
dying at the right time was Lincoln. If he had lived out his 
term, he would have become most unpopular." Booth near- 
ly fainted and only the tact of the hostess in quickly changing 
the subject saved the situation. Dramas to illustrate sex 
problems or the white slave traffic would neither have been 
permitted nor submitted to by any audience. The "Black 
Crook" at Niblos was the first of the "leg dramas," and for a 
long time only men attended. The moving pictures have 
their merits, but nothing we now possess equals the pleasure 
which Barnum gave. I came as a boy from my home at 
Peekskill to see at his museum, which was at the corner of 
Ann Street and Broadway, the Pawnee and Sioux chiefs 
whom he had secured after a massacre that had shocked the 
whole country. Nobody could imagine how he got them 
and no one doubted that he had them. Their war dance was 
blood-curdling and their yells hair-raising. In the fury of 
their play they were kept from rushing among and scalping 
the audience only by a guard of soldiers. I was so entranced 
and absorbed that I lingered long after the audience had 



15 

departed. Tliat August day was insufferably hot. The In- 
dians were in buffalo robes, feathers and paint. I was re- 
stored to consciousness when the Pawnee chief said to the 
Sioux cliief, in the richest brogue, "Mike, do ye mind, if it 
gets any hotter I'll melt sure." An Englishman of high rank 
came with letters to me, and to my question whom he would 
like to meet, answered, "Barnuiri, the great and only Barnum." 
I told Barnum, who said, "An English gentleman knows how 
to meet an American gentleman," My friend was delighted, 
had Barnum to dinner and this wonderful showman was at 
his best explaining his methods. "But," said his host, "you 
will be found out and your career closed." "Never," said 
Barnum, "fools are born every second and they love to be 
fooled." 

One of the principal sources of healthy longevity and 
the pleasure of living is a sense of humor and keen enjoyment 
of it. People who laugh easily and often never have appendi- 
citis. American humor and its cultivation were accelerated 
during the administration of President Lincoln. No Presi- 
dent ever had presented to him so many and such vexing 
problems or from men so important and. difficult. He rarely 
argued, but illustrated his position and confused his questioner 
by an apt story admirably told. He told me eleven of them 
to show how each story had confounded his questioner or 
critic and ended the discussion. These anecdotes spread 
through Washington and all over the country, and we became 
a nation of story-tellers. When I was Secretary of State and 
living in Albany fifty years ago, Artemus Ward, whose fame 
as a humorist was world-wide, came there to lecture. The 
audience was made up of the bluest blood of the old colonial 
Dutch aristocracy. They did not crack a smile until the even- 
ing was half over, when Ward came to the front of the plat- 
form, and looking" whimsically over the crowd for five minutes 
without a word, finally said, "That last remark of mine was a 
joke." The Vans after this laughed immoderately at every- 
thing. The next night Artemus Ward was at Troy. The 
Trojans had heard of the Albany density, and to show that 
they knew a joke when they saw it, and that they saw it at 
once, they began to laugh when the lecturer began and soon 



i6 

were in violent hysterics whether Ward was speaking or 
looking at them. OHver Wendell Holmes, Mark Twain, 
15ret Harte and an innumerable company have contributed to 
the happiness of the people and the gayety of nations. The 
increasing intensity of our lives, the craze for money, and 
the craze for new and bizarre amusements among those who 
have money have limited conversation to the stock market, 
the shop and the affairs of society. I fear it is rapidly de- 
stroying American humor. The venerable witticisms of the 
camp among the Philippine veterans who had formed the 
Caraboa society delighted Roosevelt while President, and Taft's 
laughter made the country join. But after the recent re- 
hearsal, the most distinguished officers of the Army and 
Navy were reprimanded and only saved from court martial 
by the protest of the people. Within a few weeks the Ameri- 
can Ambassador to Great Britain ventured in an after-dinner 
speech to follow Lowell and Phelps, Lincoln and Hay, Choate 
and Reid in those pleasantries which add to the interest of the 
occasion and contribute to international peace and good fellow- 
ship. But the United States Senate called him down with un- 
usual unanimity and one Senator solemnly declared that a joke or 
humor in an after-dinner speech was an unpardonable offence. 
The Gridiron Club of Washington has always been privileged 
to put officials from the President down upon its grill, and 
the victims have enjoyed the roast. But it is reported that 
the fun at the last entertainment of these merry gentlemen 
was indignantly resented as coarse, personal and abusive. 
As Lincoln's stories made us a nation of jokers and story- 
tellers, possibly these stern rebukes from the highest official 
authorities may make us a' nation of bores. Let us hope not. 
I have found the best insurance policy is the ability to say 
no. Many of my friends have died before their time, because 
they could not resist the appetites which destroyed them. Ab- 
stinence is hard at first, requires will power and self denial, 
but abstinence soon conc|uers desire. Ever after is the joy 
of victory and confidence in that mainspring of life — the 
will. Llorace Greeley once said to me after the payment of 
notes he had endorsed had swept away years of savings, 
"Chauncey, I want you to have a law passed making it a 



17 

felony, punishable with life imprisonment, for a man to put 
his name on the back of another man's paper." As I lament 
about one quarter of my earnings gone that way because 
of my inability to say no, and without any benefit to my 
friends, I sympathize with Mr. Greeley. 

It seems to me that the agnostic and the iconoclast lose 
much of the restfulness, content and satisfaction which come 
from faith. Better be often deceived than lose faith in friends. 
Faith in our church or political party grows by work. The 
Richmond colored preacher said, "My brethren and sisters, 
faith can move mountains, but whar's de faith?" It is behind 
the strength which is constantly moving mountains of dif- 
ficulty, troubles and worry. 

I have tried, or known others who have tried, allopathy, 
homeopathy, osteopathy. Christian science, faith cures, Swe- 
dish exercise, massage, famous healing springs, Turkish baths, 
chasing climates and other famed preventives and cures for 
relief from ills, or to prevent their recurrence or preserve 
long and healthy life. All have merits. But mind governs 
matter and to laugh with our friends, to contribute to their 
cheerfulness, to find out and enjoy the inexhaustible good 
fellowship which can be found in everybody, have done more 
than all else to keep me healthy and happy. The fated four- 
score years have gone by. The past has had its full share 
of accidents, mistakes, errors, misfartune and hard luck, but 
its compensations are so many and so great, that each knock- 
down seems in the retrospect just the punishment and dis- 
cipline needed to learn the lesson for a fruitful life and the 
enjoyment of its blessings. 



Speech by the HON. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW 
on his Eighty-first Birthday at the Montauk 
Club of Brooklyn, May 1, 1915, being the 
Twenty- fourth Annual Birthday Dinner given 
him by this Club. 

Mr. President and Gentlkmen : 

For nearly a quarter of a century you have honored me 
by an annual celebration of my birthday.^ Each anniversary 
has had in the year since the preceding one much of interest, 
National and State, and in pohtics, in social evolution, in rap- 
idly changing or crystallizing theories of life and government. 
But if these anniversaries ran back to the dawn of history 
there would be found no year like that through which we are 
passing, and if we could look forward through eternity it is 
not possible there should ever be such another. 

The forecasts of statesmen are failures. The laudable 
and apparently successful efiforts of the advocates of peace 
have become suddenly a ghastly farce. The higher ideals of 
Nations have been submerged in racial enmities and trade 
rivalries. Organized Christianity is questioned as to the re- 
sults of two thousand years' teaching, while millions of 
Christians are killing each other, and all the combatants call- 
ing upon God to help their just and rightecuis cause. Other 
millions of women and children rear rude shelters out of the 
ruins of their once happy homes and only relief supplies from 
neutral nations are saving them from starvation. But they are 
enduring sufferings and death with martyr spirit which would 
not recall, if it was possible, the bread-winner fathers, sons 
and husbands fighting in the field. The agreements of the 
Hague Tribunal solemnly ratified by the contracting govern- 
ments are shelved for the curiosity of the future historian. 
The warring powers repudiate these compacts, and neutral 
nations dare not protest, because protest means action and 
action means war. The Hague Peace Palace is to let. 

There never were preparations for war of such vast mag- 



20 

nilucle in order to preserve peace, and the perfection of the 
preparations made war inevitable. The irony of the situation 
is that the Hne is invisible between the size of armies and 
navies necessary for the national defence and militarism which 
provokes war. 

After exhaustion has brought the belligerents on one side 
to seek terms of surrender, in the wisdom of that settlement 
will be either the seeds of another and more sanguinary war, 
or a peace which so saves the pride and dignity of the van- 
quished that the peace of the world may be assured for all the 
future. Recent history furnishes two wonderful examples. 
After the Franco-Prussian war victory was followed by ven- 
geance. France was impoverished by an indemnity so large 
that it was expected to pauperize her people for ever and 
despoiled of her fairest provinces. Hate and revenge grew 
with the unexpected and marvelous recovery and prosperity of 
France, and her sons inheriting the feelings of their fathers 
are cheerfully and enthusiastically battling to right the wrongs 
of 1870. In nations as with individuals, the spoiler waxes 
strong, arrogant and reckless. The spoiled nurses his wounds 
and bides his time. The second example is our Civil War, 
North and South, each believing they were right, battled as 
our race will until by force of superior numbers, wealth and 
equipment, the Union won and the Confederates were ex- 
hausted. Here in civil strife, with its passion and vindictive- 
ness, were the possibilities of endless revolts and revolutions. 
But the rebel States were welcomed back into the Union with 
the same rights, powers and liberties under a common Con- 
stitution as the loyal States. The only exaction was the aboli- 
tion of slavery which had been the cause of the war. Union 
and Confederate veterans fight over their battles in memory 
only at happy re-unions, and their children, knowing no Nortli, 
no South, no East, no West, are proud citizens of the United 
States. For the second time in half a century since the close 
of the Civil War, the South and its economic theories are in 
absolute control of the government. W'ith militarism elimi- 
nated and peace preserved by an international police on land 
and sea, the greatest of wars may prove for mankind tlie most 
marvelous of blessings. 



21 

This year is rcniarkal)le for its centenaries. One hun- 
dred years ago Napoleon was crushed at Waterloo by the 
timely arrival of the Prussian army under Blucher to the 
assistance of the English tmder Wellington. Now the French 
are saved from annihilation by the cordial sup])ort of the 
whole naval and military power of tlie British Empire. We 
take too little into account in estimating the causes of the 
alignment of nations at one period in alliance, at another in 
hostility, of the changing ideals which govern the minds and 
action of peoples. One hundred years ago Bismarck was 
born. It is astonishing how few men there are in recorded 
history whose genius and constructive ability have influenced 
thq world in all succeeding centuries. Caesar kept Rome 
alive for four hundred years and until Roman law had become 
the ground work of the jurisprudence of all modern nations. 
Washington won the independence of his country, and then 
as President of the Convention which framed the Constitu- 
tion, by his influence in securing its adoption by the States 
and his wisdom in the inauguration and practical working of 
the new government, created and placed upon enduring foun- 
dations the Republic of the United States. It is an axiom that 
the influence of these institutions have been world wide. Na- 
poleon represented the military energies of the French Revo- 
lution. The greatest soldier of the ages, he shattered the faith 
of Europe in the Divine Right of Kings and placing manikins 
upon the emptied thrones dissipated by the sunlight of pub- 
licity the ideas of royal anointment from Heaven. Bismarck 
by his diplomacy and his victorious policy of blood and iron, 
organized military autocracy as the dominating power of the 
twentieth century and apparently checked and rendered help- 
less the fast penetrating liberal ideas of the French Revolu- 
tion. But these ideas made France a Republic, with a presi- 
dent without authority, and changed the autocratic and oli- 
garchic government of George the Third to the responsive 
democracy of George V. So when King Edward VII, prince 
of good fellows and most tactful of diplomats, and Delcasse, 
the French foreign minister, came together they settled the 
threatening war over Marchand and Fashoda by the discov- 
ery that centuries of bitter enmity between the French and 



22 



the English had passed away by both peoples having evoluted 
into the same ideals and the same responsibilities for demo- 
cratic development and social justice. So keenly did the Ger- 
man Foreign Office, which had hoped for war between the 
two countries, resent this change that they said peremptorily 
to France, "Either dismiss Delcasse or Germany declares war." 
No such imperious demand was ever made upon a sovereign 
state. But France was cowed and Delcasse was dismissed. 
But his work survives in the trenches of France and Belgium 
and the mastery of the seas for the Allied forces. To-day, 
after a hundred years. Napoleon and Bismarck upon the old 
field of Waterloo are leading millions of soldiers under 
new alignments in bloody battles for mastery in the afifairs 
of the world of the ideas for which they stand. 

The event of this century which in future years will be re- 
garded as the most important and significant of them all is the 
hundredth year of peace between the United States and Great 
Britain. The subject of international peace is to be the engross- 
ing topic, when this terrible war ends, with statesmen, publicists, 
educators and the people.- The incontestable fact that these 
two powerful nations, with frequent and graver causes for war 
than many which have plunged other governments into life 
and death battles, have settled all their difficulties by diplomacy 
during all these generations, and have kept a boundary line of 
three thousand miles without a fort, and inland seas washing 
all their interior shores without a battleship, is a monumental 
argument for the peace of the world. It will grow in the 
minds and imagination of other nations as time rolls on. The 
American Peace Commissioners at Ghent were the brilliant 
Flenry Clay, the finely equipped John Quincy Adams, Albert 
Gallatin, a trained diplomatist, James A. Bayard and Jonathan 
Russell. To meet them the British Government sent inferior 
men without power or decision except as instructed from the 
home office. It is an interesting fact that as the negotiations 
were about breaking ofif, the mighty authority and dominating 
will of the Duke of Wellington brushed aside all obstacles 
and forced an agreement. 

The City authorities of Ghent celebratedi the event with a 
ban(|uet at which the emotional and coruscating eloquence of 



23 

Henry Clay found opportunity to introduce to the time-hon- 
ored and well known speeches of Europe of that period, and 
still common, a flavor of the boundless West and the imagery 
of the setting sun which lingers in the letters of those present. 
John Quincy Adams closed the evening by proposing this 
toast, "Ghent, the city of peace, may the gates of the Temple 
of Janus here closed not be opened again for a century." It 
was an inspiration in which those there had little faith, but 
its realization makes it a rare prophecy. President Madison 
formally proclaimed peace between the United States and 
Great Britain in a document as vital and in as full force to- 
day as when it was issued one hundred years ago on the 17th 
day of February, 1815. 

Among these celebrations of events of the older time, it 
will not be thought frivolous in an after-dinner speech, which 
permits anything fit to print, providing it is interesting, that 
a hundred years ago trousers were first worn by suffering 
men. The tailor who appeared in them in Bond street, Lon- 
don, was assaulted by the mob and arrested by the police for 
indecency. The Duke of Wellington next tried the fashion, 
but was turned away from the most important ball of the 
season at Allwich. His fresh laurels of Waterloo could not 
save him from the indignation of the British matron. The 
governor of the ball said, "your grace cannot enter here. The 
guest at this ball must be dressed." The significance of 
trousers is that it marks the change which came in with the 
nineteenth century of nerve-racking habits of hurry and haste. 
Rest and repose no longer prolong and beautify our lives. 
The otittni cum dignitofe of Cicero has ceased to be a happy 
habit. The utilitarian says it cost Cicero his life, for he could 
have escaped Antony's assassins if he had hurried. The spirit 
of the age has cheapened literature. It is not that there are 
no great writers, but there are no patient readers. The pot- 
boiler drives out the classics. The clipper ship reduced the 
voyage to Europe from three months to six weeks, the steam- 
ship to ten days, and the Mauritania to five, while the cable 
annihilated distance. The stage coach and canal boat were 
superseded by the railroad, and the ten-mile-an-hour train 
evoluted into the Twentieth Century Limited which made Chi- 



24 

cago, a thousand miles away, a shopping suburb of New York. 
The mail is too slow for the present competition in business 
and the night letter by telegraph carries orders from New 
York which are executed the next morning in all the markets 
of America and Europe. In 1876 Professor Graham Bell dem- 
onstrated the practicability of the telephone for short dis- 
tances, and in 191 5 he talked easily three thousand miles across 
the continent with San Francisco. The Allies have cut the 
cables to Germany, but the air encircling the globe can neither 
be cornered nor cut and Berlin by wireless communicates daily 
with New York. In 1877 I had an option on a sixth of the Bell 
Telephone for some days for ten thousand dollars. I con- 
sulted the most famous telegraphic expert in tlie country and 
he advised me to drop it. "It is a toy and commercially a 
fake," he said. Had I followed my strong faith in the enter- 
prise I would to-day (if alive, which is doubtful) be a hun- 
dred millionaire. I have always lost money when following 
the advice of experts. They are governed by their data and 
lack imagination, and without imagination all things not 
demonstrated are to them worthless. But to return again to 
trousers. The old paraphernalia of man's nether garments, 
with its shoes, buckles, stockings, breeches and flaps required 
ten minirtes to put on. ' Trousers thirty seconds. Time is 
everything, A century of ten minutes saved each day by 
countless millions invents machinery, engineers' enterprises ac- 
cumulate fortunes and fills libraries. 

When Emma Willard appeared before the New York 
Legislature in 181 5 and petitioned for a charter for a Female 
College the Solons were thrown into a panic. They saw more 
evils to the church, the home and society in higher education 
for women than the antis do now in female suffrage. Her 
speech was a clear and prophetic outline of the girl college 
as it has developed and exists to-day. But the Legislature 
unanimously rejected her petition and saved society. That 
brave and wonderful woman enlisted friends in her project, 
and without a charter established the first institution to place 
the opportunities for girls on an equality with these for boys 
one hundred years ago at Troy. Twenty-one years after Mary 
Lvon found that the success of Miss Willard's idea had pene- 



25 

trated the Great and General Court of Massachusetts under the 
sacred codfish in Boston and secured a charter for Mount Hol- 
yoke. Then slowly came, after titanic struggle, co-education at 
Oberlin and other colleges. Matthew Vassar, seeking the best 
use of his fortune for humanity, was advised to build and 
endow a college for women. He crossed the ocean to consult 
William Chambers, the most famous educator of his time. 
That hard-headed and conservative Scot said to Vassar, "A 
safer investment than a college for girls would be a seminary 
for the blind and dumb or the weak in intellect." The burn- 
ing contempt of Chambers's opinion for woman's intellect 
reacted on the philanthropist, and Vassar College was founded 
to bless the country in unparalleled measure in its half cen- 
tury with its trained and cultured graduates and the impetus 
given to university opportunities for girls, which have resulted 
in Wellesley, Smith, Barnard and Radcliffe, and the opening 
to women of the State universities. I can remember as a boy 
that "bluestocking" was a term of reproach. In the limited 
education granted to girls in that period few had ever seen 
her. In the popular imagination, she was a living skeleton 
animated by unnatural views of the duties of wife and mother- 
hood. Through her spectacles the world to her looked sour 
and discontented, and by her perversive views she added to its 
biliousness and dissatisfaction. The highly educated woman 
of the early part of the nineteenth century in village and rural 
communities carefully concealed her accomplishments. If 
known, she was to her generation what the witch was to her 
Puritan grandfather. 

The colleges for girls have been made possible by en- 
dowment, legacies and gifts from individuals. Many reform- 
ers are now strenuously opposed to the acceptance of large 
sums by old institutions of learning or permission for the 
creation and endowment of new ones by people of large wealth. 
They claim that the donors control the education of youth 
according to their ideas, which are generally reactionary and 
hostile to progressive development. This movement is born 
of ignorance and prejudice. Its sponsors have become so 
saturated with the baleful words "interests and privilege" that 
they see in everything the influence and ultimate triumph of 



26 

"interests and privilege," meaning that a few favored citizens 
will receive benefits or powers dangerous to the public and 
denied to others. 

I was a Regent of the University of the State of New 
York for thirty-four years, and for twelve years a member 
of the Corporation of Yale. I made a study of State and 
endowed colleges. There is no endowed college with whose 
instruction or instructors or its traditional spirit, its benefac- 
tors have either voice or influence. The benefactor dies, but 
the income from his gift goes on with the college forever. 
His generosity in its beneficence is a memorial which lives 
long after all else about him is buried with his bones. Yale, 
Harvard, Princeton and Columbia retain the ideals which are 
the inspiration of their students and alumni. Professor Sum- 
ner taught successive generations of Yale students the most 
advanced free trade doctrines. His genius and impressiveness 
as a teacher converted thousands of them. Connecticut was 
one of the strongest of protection States, and if Yale had been 
a State university Sumner would have been dismissed. The 
largest donors to Yale during Professor Sumner's career were 
protectionists and opposed to Sumner's teaching, but they had 
no voice, and there was never a thought of disturbing him. 
The same is true with the German professors at Harvard and 
Columbia now. But with State universities there is always a 
panic when the State administration changes in politics. The 
situation to-day in the University of Utah, with part of its 
professors arbitrarily dismissed and most of the others re- 
signing, and conditions in the University of Wisconsin are 
current examples. When addressing State universities, the 
Faculty have told me, "Our academic independence is always 
in peril. We are dependent for our income on annual appro- 
priations by the Legislature and the party in power for the 
moment starves us, if it disapproves our general policy or the 
views of probably our most distinguished professors. We 
have to maintain a lobby at the Capitol and the lobbyist is the 
most useful member of our Faculty." 

The centenary which ought to have touched us New 
Yorkers with more sentiment than any of the others of this 
remarkable year is the one which closed the three hundredth 



27 

year- of chartered commerce in New York. It passed with 
little public notice or from our citizens. Three hundred years 
in the origin and growth of an American city is an event and 
an epoch. It antedates the landing of the Pilgrims on Ply- 
mouth Rock, which has inspired the best brains of the country 
and filled the libraries with history, eloquence and poetry. 
And yet this small spot of earth has nearly as large popu- 
lation, wealth, business, children in the schools, and more 
students in its colleges than all the New England States 
together. The careful New Englander has so nourished 
and celebrated his traditions that they are the teachings 
of our schools and the literature of our homes. The care- 
less New Yorker believes that the location of his city, its 
superb harbor, the unequaled gifts which nature has be- 
stowed upon it have so assured its pre-eminence that neither 
effort nor civic pride is required from him. This town 
pays forty per cent of the income tax, collects sixty per cent 
of the revenues of the United States, is the greatest manufac- 
turing city in the country, with more capital and labor em- 
ployed. Its art collections rank with the best in the world. 
Twenty-five thousand students crowd its professional, tech- 
nological and art schools. On the map of the United States 
it is a speck requiring a microscope to discover it, and yet 
in all that constitutes a great commonwealth it surpasses nine- 
teen sovereign States of our Union. It has centered upon it 
the animosity or rather vindictive jealousy of the country, 
increasing in intensity according to distance. This feeling 
produced an income tax so framed as to relieve the constit- 
uents of its authors and put as much as possible the burden 
on New York. It manipulated the new banking system to 
take away our natural advantages as a financial center, and 
discovers that the laws of trade are higher than statutes of 
Congress. The statesmen who thus thought they had dis- 
tributed money and credit regardless of conditions or needs 
find that, while thinking they had forever buried their pet 
horror, a Central Bank, have really created one of the strongest 
and most efficient in the world. In other lands and ages, on 
the spot where this municipal marvel began, would be erected 
a monument rivaling the wonders of the world, but instead 



28 



the city slumbers and individual enterprise rears on the site 
of the log hut, which was the trading post of three hundred 
years ago at 39 Broadway, a skyscraper whose fifty-odd stories 
rise above the architectural wonders of ancient and modern 
times. 

A conversation which I enjoyed with a group of gentle- 
men in Congress who were enthusiasts over the passage of the 
income tax measure and most optimistic of its results revealed 
a curious mixture of altruism and opportunism in the mind of 
statesmen. I said, "I agree with you that an income tax is 
fair because it imposes the support of government upon all 
according to their incomes. We all agree that every citizen 
who contributes ever so little towards carrying on the govern- 
ment is interested and watchful and that promotes better 
administration. Why then have you framed this bill to reach 
only a small proportion of Jhe people, so small that they can 
have little influence? There are a hundred million people in 
this country. You have put the exemption from the tax so 
high that only 357,598, or less than one-half of one per cent., 
are called upon to pay." The answer was prompt. 'Tf we 
included the rest or any large number of them we could never 
return here." 

But the concentration of centennaries in this year of 
events which are writ large in the history of the world are 
not its only distinctions. It has an immediate and vital interest 
to us in the culmination of efforts for larger powers in the 
government over the activities of the individual to reverse 
the rules which have prevailed since the founding of the 
Republic, in order to bring about a social and industrial para- 
dise known according to its authors under various titles as the 
new freedom, social justice, the uplift or progress. That it 
is new is not doubted, but whether it is freedom or uplift 
social justice or progress is debatable. Years ago, in early 
studies of our development, I came to the conclusion that it is 
due, more than to anything else, to the principle laid down 
by the Pilgrims in their charter framed in the cabin of the 
Mayflower to form a government of "just and equal laws." 
This has been crystallized in our constitutions and laws. Na- 
tional and State, to make all equal before the law. It was a 



29 

new idea of the relations of the people to their government. 
The autocrat, the oligarch and the beaurocrat were abolished 
and the individual was left untranimeled to work out his ca- 
reer. Thomas Jefferson's maxim "that government is best 
which governs least" became and has continued until very 
recent years the settled policy of the United States. We de- 
veloped on broad and virile lines to be a nation of pioneers. 
With the Bible, the Declaration of Independence and the Con- 
stitution of the United States as their libraries and instrifctors 
they carried the church and the schoolhouse with them into 
the wilderness. They founded and builded forty-eight com- 
monwealths of the union with their marvelous advance in all 
that makes prosperous and happy States. 

Every group has its leader. The experience of sixty 
years of active work over a large and varied field has taught 
me that progress never originates or is systematically carried 
on by the mass. It always has its inception and development 
in the individual. In older civilizations the death of the leader 
was either fatal or his power was inherited by a bureaucracy 
which sooner or later failed. But under our system of devolv- 
ing responsibility upon the individual the leader of supreme 
ability is surrounded with capable and independent under- 
studies who can take up and carry on the work. The creative 
influence of Washington and Lincoln is not questioned. The 
ideas of Hamilton and Jefferson have dominated our great 
parties and moulded our national policies. Jackson's leader- 
ship was so masterful that in rage at a financier he was able 
to change the financial system of the country. Though ig- 
norant of either the principles or practice of banking, he forced 
the adoption of a system which was a perennial peril to our 
credit and involved us in disastrous panics in spite of our 
development. His dead hand held our financial policy, our 
banks, our currency by the throat for over half a century, and 
until partially released last year. Congress for two years has 
been in continuous session at the demand and to register the 
decrees of President Wilson because for the first time in a 
generation the Democratic Party has a leader. 

Union labor, after many organizations and reorganiza- 
tions, has, under the intelligent and masterful leadership of 



30 

I 
Samuel Gompers, secured a Department in the Government, a 
Cabinet Minister, and enacts or defeats legislation as it wills. 
It requires no effort of the imagination to see in this most 
savage and destructive war of all time the influence of Fred- 
erick the Great and Jean Jacques Rousseau, of Napoleon and 
Bismarck, of Nietzsche and Gladstone. In other fields are 
still Loyola and Luther, Wesley and Wilberforce. The same 
rule prevails in material affairs in the great Captains of In- 
dustry who have revolutionized trade and commerce, transpor- 
tation and manufactures, and in literature and the pulpit. 
Journalism and the law give their unbroken and unanimous 
testimony to gifts which sway multitudes and leave indelible 
impressions upon the times. 

The new idea is to reverse the laws of nature by acts of 
Congress. It repudiates the old system of the "equality of all 
men before the law," and seeks to secure the equality of all 
despite differences in character, ability, initiation, energy, in- 
dustry and thrift. It tries to do away with competition, be- 
cause under comlpetitive conditions the best man wins, and 
then to so control competition which does survive that the 
lame and the lazy may divide with the strong, capable and 
sober. A national commission of well-meaning gentlemen 
to whom business is a mystery are given unlimited power over 
business to help the weak and check the strong. The wise, 
experienced and able management of the railroads of the 
country is as necessary to the public as to the corporations, 
and yet another law when it goes into effect, if it is enforced 
according to its letter and spirit, will make it impossible for 
any one who has demonstrated his judgment and ability by 
accumulating property to be a director of a railroad company. 
The Hotel de Gink is to be our industrial university and the 
hobo our ideal of efficiency. 

The statesmen wdio enact these grotesque laws are men 
of brains, conscience and pariotism. They have not been in 
contact with business, big or little, and spurn the lessons of 
experience. They believe that the faults or evils which are 
found in the transaction of business are to be "remedied by 
unhatchcd theories. Nothing disturbs their cocksuredness. 
Up to forty I thought that a sign of strength and wisdom. At 



31 

eighty-one I doubt. A study of the lives of the men in Con- 
gress and in every department of the government who are most 
active in these experiments, of the size, importance and in- 
dustries of the places where they reside, of their contact with 
business, or of their opportunities to know practically its needs, 
is most instructive. Three members of Congress, who more 
than any others are the authors of legislation regulating busi- 
ness, hail from rural towns whose peaceful and primitive 
slumbers have not been disturbed by factories and whose 
joint populations are 20,000. An industrious commission is 
trying to find out the causes of the present unrest, unemploy- 
ment and timidity of capital to invest in new enterprises or 
the expansion of old ones. It requires no investigation to dis- 
cover that the business experience and Success of the country 
are on one side but without power, and the theorists are on 
the other side clothed with all the might, majesty and au- 
thority of the United States. 

The characteristic of our people is their ability for quickl-y 
adjusting themselves to conditions. Give them the rules of the 
game and they will speedily learn to play it. This faculty is 
an inheritance from the men and women who settled the 
wilderness and subdued it, who out of hostile surroundings 
built up prosperous States. They have never more clearly 
demonstrated these qualities than at present. The resistless 
energy, the progressive individualism, the invincible optimism 
of the American people is rescuing business from its official 
handicaps and promoting prosperity. 

It is a significant development of the twentieth century 
that men who by supremely grasping the opportunities of the 
nineteenth and twentie'th have accumulated great wealth are 
devoting it to public uses, instead of the old idea of founding 
a family. The almost incredible sum of six hundred millions 
of dollars has already been so donated by John D. Rockefeller 
and Andrew Carnegie. But another phenomenon of the times 
is that these gifts and the schemes to perpetuate them have 
aroused bitter criticism and fierce opposition. The Rockefeller 
Foundation saved Wellesley College after its disastrous fire, 
gave Yale the help required in completing a great medical 
school, sent a million dollars' worth of food to Belgium, when 



32 

other sources were inadequate to save the starving milHons 
of that unfortunate country. Its contributions organized 
boys' ckibs on the farms and has increased them from nothing 
a short time ago to 10,343 in 1908, and they had grown in 
1913 to 91,000. They are necessarily under the control of 
the Department of Agriculture, which pays the organizers 
and instructors one dollar a year, and all the rest of the ex- 
penses is borne by the Foundation. Similar conditions exist in 
the fight against the Boll Weevil. These clubs, under competent 
teachers, are raising on their little tracts three times as much 
corn and wheat as their fathers on the same farms. The Foun- 
dation has furnished the funds to investigate and stamp out the 
curse pellagra and save the cotton crop from the Boll Weevil. 
Yet, a United States Senator stirred that august body and won 
popularity among great masses of people by declaring that he 
would see the cotton plants destroyed and the industry ruined 
rather than they should be saved by the money of this Founda- 
tion. God would provide, he said, other means of living for 
these unfortunate millions of farmers and give them substi- 
tutes for cotton. I say it reverently, God leaves to his people 
the largest liberty in making their careers and conducting their 
affairs. The fool reaps the fruit of his follies and sadly learns 
by experience that no supernatural power reverses the rules 
of production or the laws of trade. The trouble with the 
interpreters of the Almighty is that they are densely ignorant 
of the Divine purposes. The foolish virgins cry to Heaven 
for oil and none drops, while the wise ones have a torchlight 
procession to the wedding feast. 

Our ancestors knew all about tyranny and determined to 
found a government in which their descendants would be for- 
ever free. The tyrant, the dictator, the mob and the majority 
are equally ruthless of human rights if they check their desires 
or ambitions. So for the first time in government these in- 
spired men of the Revolution imposed limitations upon them- 
selves. They placed constitutional barriers around "life, 
liberty and the pursuit of happiness" which neither the Presi- 
dents nor Congress, nor the courts nor all combined could 
overstep. It is these safeguards which impatient reformers 
so vigorously and viciously assail to be themselves ultimately 



33 

victims of license if they should succeed. I recognize the use- 
fulness of extreme radicalism. While it would bring on 
anarchy or revolution, if unchecked, yet the violence of its 
advocacy moves the mass slowly to a sane and safe realization 
of its best objects. I read the most radical journals, but while 
fiery, they are dull. They discuss brilliantly all the problems 
of the day, but wind up each article with their remedy as the 
panacea for all the ills of society and government. They are 
much like the able essay or charming story which ends by 
recommending a patent medicine. Even in climbing Parnassus 
Pegassus cannot get out of the rut and runs around the base 
of the mountain. Either in exclusive and intense concentra- 
tion on one subject, the mind loses its grasp and enjoyment 
of all questions or the advocates believe that constant drop- 
ping wears away the stone. Perhaps it may, but it promotes 
sleep. 

It is a gift of healthy old age that you cease to be alarmed 
or worried. My philosophic friend, who had made and lost 
several fortunes, put his hat on the back of his head when 
down on his luck and cheerfully remarked, "The world always 
has gone around, and I believe it will keep going around." 
Galileo, when bored by the sermon, looked up at the chandelier 
and saw it swing backwards and forwards with the movement 
of the earth. This suggested to him the pendulum and the 
law of gravitation ajid the mathematical accuracy of the move- 
ments of the sun, moon and stars. The pendulum is on its 
return swing. Politicians are discovering it. Progressives 
and stand patters are joining in the chorus of the brotherhood 
of man and there is harmony in the choir. Finding that dis- 
tress both with capital and labor has followed and industrial 
paralysis resulted from their hilarious crusade against busi- 
ness, they are eagerly assuring business that the Industrial 
Commission is to put the government behind business as soon 
as it is informed how it can help, and that they have happily 
discovered that strangulation is not the mission of regulation. 
Mr. Lincoln, in telling me in his quizzical way of some of his 
troubles, said, "I have a friend quite as able as I am, but every- 
thing has always been against him. He is a failure and very 
poor. When I became President I decided that among my first 



34 

acts would be to reverse the bad fortune of my friend. I said 
to him I will give you the marshalship of the District of 
Columbia. The salary is ample and I want you near me. He 
refused and demanded Minister to Brazil. I told him that 
position had been given to General Webb ; that he knew 
nothing of Brazil and was not fit or equipped for the position. 
What you require, I said to him, for your family and future 
is money, and you can have the place of naval officer in the 
New York Custom House, which is an honorable position and 
will make you independent for life beyond your wildest 
dreams." He said, "H our positions were reversed I would 
give you anything you asked, and if I am denied Brazil I will 
take nothing." It is amazing how large a class that man repre- 
sents. Eugenics is a good thing, but its advocates reach an 
extreme which threatens su setback, for their efforts when 
among the bills its professors are pressing in a legislature is 
one that all knock-kneed men shall be compelled to marry 
bowlegged women. 

The peril of old age is the general acceptance of its ex- 
cuses. Youth and middle life are held to strict accountability 
for laziness, intemperance, neglect, indift'erence or any failure 
to meet the requirements of personal health or duty to society. 
But the septuagenarian or still more the octogenarian finds 
friends who tell him that exertion depletes his vitality. Work 
exhausts his strength and whiskey is a tonic for failing powers. 
If he succumbs to the voice of the siren feebleness, decay and 
death are charged to age. Martin Luther summed up the 
philosophy of healthy and vigorous age in five memorable 
words, "when I rest I rust." 

A few days ago was the fiftieth anniversary of Appo- 
mattox. Those of us who were in full vigor on that eventful 
ninth of April. 1865, can never forget the eft'ect of the an- 
nouncement of the surrender of General Lee and his army, 
the generous terms conceded by General Grant and the end 
of Civil War. Stanton, Secretary of War; Senator Wade and 
Thaddeus Stevens, representing the radicals, demanded the 
repudiation of Grant's agreenient with Lee and vindictive pun- 
ishment of Confederate soldiers and statesmen. Only the 
prestige of Grant and the policy of Lincoln prevented guerilla 



35 

-war for a generation. General (Iranl's cry "lel ns have peace" 
rang throngh the land as few utterances ever have. With 
slavery, the cause of the war, abolished, after a few rash ex- 
periments of military control, the seceded States were wel- 
comed to all the rights under the Constitution and the Union 
enjoyed by their victorious brethren. On Decoration Day the 
lUue and the Gray intermingle the flowers strewn upon llic 
graves of their heroes, and peace and prosperity have united 
North and South, East and West. 

The victory at Sedan accomplished the object of the war 
which was the federation of the German States into the Ger- 
man Empire. France was only a means to the end. But the con- 
queror declared, "I will bleed France white." For forty-four 
years the patriots of Alsace and Lorraine have been ruthlessly 
punished for aspirations expressed in action or speech to be 
reunited to their country with the usual legacy of hatred, and 
the annual visit of the tax collector to gather the huge sums 
from the people of the French Republic necessary to meet the 
interest on the five thousand million of francs exacted as an 
indemnity from France has kept brightly burning the fires of 
revenge. This terrible war must end by exhaustion. Exces- 
sive and challenging militarism made the conflict. The peace 
of the world for the future depends upon the nations sub- 
stituting arbitration for militarism and heeding in the terms 
of settlement exacted and accepted the lesson of Appomattox 
rather than Sedan. 



Speech of HON. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW at the 
Dinner Given Him by his Railroad Associates 
in Honor of his Eightieth Birthday at the 
University Club, New York, May 5, 1914. 

Mr. Chairman and Friends: All the celebrations which 
have been given in honor of my eightieth birthday have been 
most gratifying. Each one had its own peculiar significance, 
but this tonight from you, gentlemen, dififers widely from the 
rest. There is an intimacy, brotherhood, both of time and 
conditions, which rarely exist. 

I became connected with our New York Central Company 
forty-eight years ago. January, 1916, rounds out my half 
century. There is no one living in any capacity who was in 
the service of the Company when I began. There is no execu- 
tive officer of any railroad in the United States who is still 
active, who was one when I became President thirty years ago. 
All these are distinctions. It is hard to define precisely what 
constitutes a distinction. Methuselah was the oldest man 
who ever lived and that was his distinction, lie might have 
claimed and probably did that his age was due to a well-spent 
life. The man who set fire to the Temple of Ephesus, at that 
time the architectural wonder of the world, accomplished his 
purpose which was to immortalize his name. 

It is idle to enumerate examples, when there are so many 
among poets and historians, conquerors and philosophers, 
philanthropists and inventors, boy prodigies and old age won- 
ders. Nevertheless, it is a distinction to be the longest of your 
line in any profession, pursuit or vocation, because there are 
many competitors and there is always a "bomb" with the fuse 
lighted under your official chair. 

There is one word frequently used whose significance has 
never been properly understood and appreciated. That word^ 
is "association." It has no Hmit in confidential relations or 
time. It is difficult, after the lapse of so many years, after 
the crossing over to the other side of such a vast majority of 



38 

your associates, after recalling their merits, tlieir virtues, their 
good works, your love for them and their loyalty to you, to 
speak of the past without almost uncontrollable emotion. 
My policy and practice during all these years have been one 
of confidence and intimacy with all my associates in everv 
grade of the service. J think when active in the operation 
of the Company, I had a wider personal acquaintance with 
the thousands who were connected with the corporation than 
an}l)ody. This was because my habit of speaking at the 
anniversaries and celebrations of the diiYerent Orders in the 
railway service, led to familiar acquaintance with locomotive 
engineers, firemen, conductors, brakemen and those in the 
shops, in the yards and on the track. I may say, always be- 
lieving in the virtue of reciprocity, I have never in my long 
career had my confidence abused. 

To have been in close and active participation with the 
railway development of the last half century is in itself a life 
of extraordinary education and opportunity. To have had in 
a large measure the confidence of those great constructive 
minds who were the pioneers in the creation of this network 
of rails which have (le\eloi)ed our country and made it what 
it is, was a rare privilege. 

The attorney and counsel in my early days saw much of 
the president. He was generally a part of the executive stafl:', 
always on the car in the tours of inspection, always present at 
the frecjuent meetings, so difficult, so controversial, with the 
executives of rival corporations and always present when 
difficult questions in any of the departments had reached the 
executive for decision. When I became President, on account 
of this training, the operating department, the freight and pas- 
senger departments were to me as if T had been trained in 
each and all. And yet one of the most interesting of my 
duties was to stand l)etween the pul)lic and the Compan}^ 
when hostility to the railroads was most, acute. Agitators 
fanned this feeling into a flame, and the press generally, and 
Chambers of Commerce and P^oards of Trade were most un- 
friendly. Hostile legislation threatened both the efficiency and 
solvency of the railways. I recall as one of the most satisfac- 
tory of ihe events of the part 1 had in settling tlmse troubles. 



39 

removing antagonism and establishing harmonious relations 
between the people and the railroads. The most striking" 
proof of this change from bitter enmity to cordial friendship 
was when the delegates from the State of New York to the 
National Republican Convention in 1888 unanimously pre- 
sented me as their candidate for President of the United 
States. Those shrewd, able and wonderfully equipped men 
would never have advocated a candidate unless they firmly 
believed he would have, at the election, the support of the 
people. 

It seems like the history of early times for me to stand 
before you and say that in my early days in the service Com- 
modore X'anderbilt had the Hudson River and Harlem and 
afterwards, as you know, the New York Central and Lake 
Shore ; Colonel Scott the Pennsylvania and John W. Garrett 
the Baltimore and Ohio. These men were giants in their day 
and of extraordinary genius for aiTairs. As an attorney I saw 
Commodore \^anderbilt every day at his office, in his house, 
during the last ten years of his life. I had, or prior to that 
time, been twice a Alember of the Legislature and Secretary of 
State of New York. I had come in close contact with Presi- 
dent Lincoln, General Grant, General Sherman, General Sheri- 
dan and all public men of that wonderful period of original 
and distinguished captains. It had made me a student, deeply 
interested in the mental (jualities and characteristics which 
had made these men great. I came to the conclusion that the 
cjuality of greatness can neither be analyzed nor defined. 

I have often found what would be a weakness in an or- 
d.inarv man is the principal clement of power in a great one. 
Commodore X'anderbilt was an enigma to his closest asso- 
ciates. How he arrived at conclusions they could not tell. 
They could only wonder that his conclusions were almost in- 
variably correct and his decisions rendered almost immediately 
after the question was given. Some called it intuition, some 
luck. There was much of the former and very little of the 
latter. That the Commodore went from the steamlx)at to the 
steamship, in both of which he had been a leader, for the rail- 
road, in which he became the leader, leaving the one and enter- 
ing the other, at the right time in the industrial development 



40 

of the country, was neither hick nor intuition, but marvelous 
perception of concUtions, accuracy of judgment and resistless 
quickness in following judgment by action. It would take all 
night to recall and differentiate those leaders in the other 
systems. 

A few of our own people. Most of you can remember 
Tousey, our General Manager. He was a capital officer who, 
like most of those who had come up from the ranks, had no 
use for the products of the schools. When we needed a super- 
intendent, he said to one of the candidates, "Are you a grad- 
uate of the Troy Polytechnic, of the Stevens or the ]\Iassa- 
chusetts Tech?" "No," said the candidate. "What is your 
career?" "I began as a telegraph operator, then assistant to 
the division superintendent, then division superintendent, then 
general superintendent." "Tiiat's enough," said Tousey, "you 
are appointed." 

One of the original characters was Major Zenus Priest, 
who was for fifty years, most of the time as division superin- 
tendent, with our Company. Pie always joined me in my re- 
peated trips over the line. He was an excellent officer, kept 
his division in good condition, got along well with his men 
but always predicted .a strike before I came over the road 
again. It was a time when the railway men were forming new 
labor organizations, and okl Major Priest thought every new 
organization was a nucleus of a strike. 

Another superintendent long with us was Burroughs, an 
original man who said very little, except to himself, with 
whom he was always talking. I remember going over the line 
with him on the pony engine, and I will say for those of my 
friends here who are not familiar with that machine that it is 
a cabin built over the boiler of the locomotive, with chairs 
on each side, so that you can sit in front and watch the track 
as the locomotive speeds along. Burroughs would sit on one 
side looking cut. I, as President, on the other. Burroughs 
talking to himself would comment on the track, roadbed, 
grading rails and say what he would do by way of compliment 
or ])unishment to the man in charge. On one trip, without 
changing voice. Burroughs said. "That switch is open, — in less 
than a minute we will be in hell." The locomotive jumped 



41 

the switch and landed on the track all right, and the next com- 
ment was, "That switchman is discharged." 

The most remarkable revolution in the last fifty years has 
been the relations between government, National and State, 
and the railroads. As a new country we wanted railroads, and 
settlements, farms, villages and cities followed along the lines 
of their construction. Building them was a huge gamble for 
the promoters. Some paid largely, some after years of strug- 
gle yielded a small return, while many went bankrupt and 
through several reorganizations ruined the original and suc- 
ceeding investors. 

A railroad never goes out of business, its rails are not 
torn up. It becomes indispensable to the communities it has 
created or made prosperous. And so making no returns to 
those who have put their money into it as stockholders or 
loaned it their savings as bondholders and sometimes not even 
earning taxes, it continues to run under the Court and through 
a receiver. But the time came in railway development when 
government regulation was indispensable. The success of the 
Massachusetts Railroad Commission, which was purely ad- 
visory, impressed the country. As an attorney, I opposed the 
movement at first, but soon became convinced that regulation 
was a necessity for the public, the shippers, railroad invest- 
ment and operations. 

William H. Vanderbilt was then President as well as the 
owner of a majority of the stock of the New York Central 
Railroad. He was a broad-minded man of great ability, but 
handicapped to a certain extent, as many an exceedingly 
caf)able son has been, by the fame of his father. After care- 
ful consideration he accepted that view and welcomed the 
Commission. The first idea of the Railroad Commissioners 
was that to secure equitable rates they must encourage cut- 
throat competition. They soon learned that this policy bank- 
rupted weaker lines and also business in the territory which 
they served. These lines could not give their people a service 
which would enable them to compete with their more for- 
tunate competitors on the stronger lines. The true principle 
of transportation was ultimately solved, that is equal rates to 
all and reasonable rates which will provide for maintenance 



42 

and improvements and a fair return to the investors. But 
the rapid evohition of railway control lias produced unex- 
pected results. It has given us in the Inter State Commerce 
Commission the most powerful bureau in the country. 

There are nearly two millions on the payrolls of the rail- 
roads, and with their families the}- number ten millions or one- 
tenth of the population of the country. There are nearly as 
many dependent largely on the railroads in the coal and iron 
mines, the steel rail mills and the manufacture of railway sup- 
l)lies. There are ten million depositors in the savings banks, 
and the largest investment of those banks is in railroad securi- 
ties. So here are nearly two-thirds of the people directly or 
indirectly dependent upon the prosperity of the railroads, and 
the railroads entirely dependent for their prosperity and effi- 
ciency upon tiie Inter State Commerce Commission. The situa- 
tion is without a parallel. The responsibility is paralyzing. 
The Commission has far more power than the Supreme Court 
of the United States. It more intimately aiTects the family 
and the home. It should have equal dignity in extended terms 
of offices and in salaries to attract the greatest ability and 
independence. 

The following statistics are eloquent of the situation: 

Of earnings of the railroads of the United States in 191 3 

amounting to $3,118,929,318 

there was paid to employees 1,439,000,000 

for taxes 129,052,922 

for materials and supplies 320,823,000 

in dividends 217,000,000 

in interest or indebtedness 407,000,000 

Reduced to percentages they exhibit this remarkable re- 
sult : 

Percentage from gross earnings paid to employees 44.00 

Percentage from gross earnings paid for materials and 

supplies 23.10 

Percentage from gross earnings paid for interest i3-04 

Percentage from gross earnings paid for taxes 4.14 

Percentage from gross earnings paid for dividends 4.09 



43 

Railway management is a profession requiring study, 
preparation, trnining, practical ex])erience and high ahilities. 
The government in the Inter State Commerce Commission 
should he al)le hy reason ot the honor and i)ermanence of the 
position to attract to this service the most tried, proved and 
expert talent and character there is among the peu])le. 

There is no vocation where there is so much camaraderie 
and good fellowship as among railroad men. We have a 
difticult task to perform, the most ditficult of any profession. 
Tlie whole public uses the instrumentalities which we control, 
manage and work. Therefore, we have to satisfy the public 
of the United States, and at the same time satisfy the in- 
vestors. This requires an unusual degree of character, intelli- 
gence, experience and devotion to duty. It is a tribute to the 
two million men who are engaged in the railway service that 
so few drop out by the way, so few render themselves liable 
to the criminal courts or the adverse judgment of superior 
officers in the discharge of the dit^cult functions, which in 
every branch they are called upon to perform. There is and 
always has been in our Central System an unusual degree of 
brotherhood. 

When I entered service the Central System consisted of 
the Harlem railroad, running from New York to Chatham, 
one-hundrecl and twenty-eight miles. To-day it has twenty 
thousand miles and is, if you take into consideration all that 
it is and does, probably the most important railway system in 
the world. It is a wonderful and grateful experience to have 
been so closely associated in the same company with the men, 
distinguished for their ability and achievements, who have 
come and gone in these last fifty years and to hnd mvself in 
cordial intimacy and almost as one of the youngest among 
those who are still active. 

Commodore Vanderbilt said to me one morning over forty 
years ago, not long before he died: 'T would like, if I could be 
assured, that some Vanderbilt would be in the management of 
the New York Central road for many generations to come, 
but I do not hope that the Vanderbilt influence will extend 
l)eyoud the sons of my son William IT." If in the other 
world those who have i)assed the Great Divide are conscious 



44 

of what is happening here, as I believe they are, then the Com- 
modore must be pleased when he sees and knows that in the 
official ranks of the New York Central are two Vanderbilts 
of a still younger generation, William K., Jr., and Harold, 
both efficient, both able, both promising, both with long lives 
of usefulness before them, and I am glad that we can welcome 
them among us here tonight. 

My friends, four-score years seem wonderful in prospect. 
r remember when I thought that forty was old, when fifty 
ought to be the time to retire, when sixty was past consid- 
eration. But when one has passed that great climacteric of 
eighty, then the past seems to have been a preparation for the 
future, and the future he looks forward to with hopefulness, 
optimism, thanks and profound appreciation of the greetings, 
the welcome, the hail and hope which you give. I thank you, 
gentlemen. 



Speech by HON. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW at 
a Reception Given by the Union League Club 
of New York in Honor of his Eightieth Birthday 
on May 8, 1914. 

The reception at the Union League Chib in honor of Mr. 
Depevv's eightieth year was one of the largest in the history 
of the Club. 

Samuel W. Fairchild, the President, was in the chair. 
Speeches w-ere made by former Presidents of the Club, Gen- 
eral Horace Porter and George R. Sheldon, and also by 
William D. Guthrie, George T. Wilson and William D. Mur- 
phy. The venerable General Benjamin F. Tracy, who was 
Secretary of the Navy in the Cabinet of President Harrison, 
gave interesting reminiscences and among them said that as 
a member of President Harrison's official family, he knew 
that the President had twice invited Mr. Depew to become a 
member of his Cabinet, the last time as Secretary of State. 

Mr. President and Fellow-Members of the Union 
LeacJue Club : It is most thoughtful of you and grateful to me 
that you thus celebrate my eightieth birthday. To have 
rounded out and passed the fateful four-score is an achieve- 
ment, if accomplished with the retention of unimpaired health 
and vigo^. It starts one hopefully on the last lap, but one, for 
the century mark. 

So many friends and organizations are paying me this 
compliment that it is impossible for more than one to have 
their celebration on the natal day. The result is that my birth- 
days have been celebrated so often on different dates this year, 
that I have almost lost recollection of the "real" day. I am 
afraid that I may be like St. Patrick in this respect. That 
revered Saint had among his followers certain partisans who 
claimed that he was born on the 6th of March and others who 
insisted upon the nth. Peace was finally restored by combin- 
ing the two, so that now we all especially revere St. Patrick 
on the 17th of March. 



46 

I liavc been forty-six years a niem1)er of this Club and 
seven times its President, a record as to the Presidency which 
I may say, at my time of Hfe and reminiscently, has not been 
equalled in successive terms of service by any other of the 
distinguished gentlemen who have filled this great office. 

To have belonged to the Union League Club and been 
active in its affairs for nearly half a century is to have been 
brought in contact with the most evolutionary and beneficial 
history of tlie United States, of the State and City of New 
York, and with the eminent men who made that history. There 
are very few members of the Club who are familiar with its 
origin and who can go 1)ack successfully in memory to the 
times of the Civil War when this Club was organized. It 
may not be inappropriate to present a picture of our inspir- 
ing beginnings. The Union League Club grew out of the 
United States Sanitary Commission. At the time of the Civil 
War there were no agencies known to alleviate the sufferings 
of the wounded and to help the families of the killed, like 
the Red Cross of to-day. The United States Sanitary Com- 
mission filled that function in a remarkable way. It raised 
millions of dollars and through its branches all over the North 
furnished millions of dollars worth of clothes and hospital sup- 
plies to the Union Armies. Its members in New York City 
felt that they needed a social home like a Club to increase the 
efficiency of their work. They were tireless laborers in col- 
lecting money afid in forwarding supplies to the hospitals, to 
the field and to the soldiers' homes. 

In the debate over the selection of a nam-e, they first 
chose "Loyal," then "National," and finally decided upon The 
Union League. The only requirement, beyond character, was 
loyalty to the Union, regardless of party affiliations. It was 
meant to be a League of those who would devote themselves 
to the carrying out and ])erfecting in government Webster's 
immortal ])hrasc, "Liberty and T'nion, One and Inse])aral)le, 
.\o\v and lu^rcver." 

The first great work of the CIuIj was to raise a regiment 
of colored men. In a short time there were 1,020 enrolled 
in the first regiment and 600 recruited for the second. New 
York, at that time, was a disloyal city. Its trade had been 



47 

seriously injured. It clou1)ted the success of the Union cause. 
A large majority were in favor of peace at any price, and 
it had emphasized its bitterness by killing negroes and burn- 
ing the Negro Orphan Asylum. The threat was openly made 
that the regiment would never be permitted to march through 
the city. The wives of the members of the Club presented 
it with the regimental colors, and the members of the Clul), 
in a body, accompanied by their wives, marched at the head 
of the regiment to the pier, where they embarked for the 
field. That event, witnessed not only by the citizens of the 
city but by thousands who came in from the country, changed 
public sentiment, and thereafter, the Club raised two more 
regiments and also three regiments of white soldiers. 

The first public reception, which has been followed by 
so many other memorable ones, was given to that splendid 
soldier and magnificent looking specimen of a man. General 
Winfield Scott Hancock, who had come to New York to 
recruit the second corps of the Army of the Potomac. The 
Club raised for him two hundred and fifty thousand dollars 
and through its direct efi^orts three thousand men. 

It may be well to record here that there were, at that 
time, in the City of New York, six thousand negroes capable 
of military duty, and of that number three regiments of one 
thousand were raised, armed and equipped by the Club and 
one thousand volunteers in other organizations. In propor- 
tion to their number, a splendid evidence of their loyalty and 
patriotism. 

A feature of the Club life has been the receptions which 
followed that to General Hancock in 1864. I remember well 
the one tendered to General Grant, the year after the close 
of the \\'ar. He was far way the most distinguished figure 
in American public life. He had won sixty-three battles and 
ended the Civil \Var at Appomattox. The enthusiasm was 
boundless, but the hero of the occasion modest, embarrassed 
and speechless. When he returned to New York, after his 
presidency, to reside, he was the honored guest at all of our 
public banquets. I came in late to one of these, wdiile the 
General was painfully trying to speak. He stopped and said, 
"If I could stand in Chauncey Depew's shoes and he in mine, 



48 

I'd be happy instead of a miserable man to-night." It fur- 
nished me an opportunity, speaking later, to dwell upon who 
could ever stand in Grant's shoes. The General became sub- 
sequently an excellent public speaker and when he generously, 
after his defeat at Chicago, took the stump for the successful 
candidate,- General Garfield, his addresses were most effective. 

We have received every President, with the exception 
of Cleveland, and each occasion was memorable, because each 
of these Chief Magistrates recognized that in his own nom- 
ination and election this Club had rendered mo^t valuable 
and effective support. The most genial of Presidents, Mr. 
McKinley, loved beyond all the receptions given him in vari- 
ous parts of the country the cordiality and enthusiasm, the 
friendship and brotherliness with which he was treated here. 
Of course, the receptions to our member, Colonel Roosevelt 
and to President Taft are within all of your recollections. 
At the supper following the reception to Mr. Taft, I noticed 
that the elderly guests had serious limitations upon their ability 
to indulge in the feast. My own ability in that line being 
unimpaired, I called attention to the fact and derided them 
upon these evidences of "old days." Whereupon the always 
delightful and witty Choate convulsed the crowd by shout- 
ing, "Who is your plumber?" 

The distinction of our Club has been the public measures 
which it has advocated by resolutions and pamphlets. 
In stress and distress, financial and industrial, which followed 
the Civil War, there was an active effort in behalf of repudia- 
tion of the public debt. It then amounted to about five thou- 
sand millions of dollars and seemed intolerable. The Club's 
resolutions formed the basis of opposition to this movement all 
over the country. Its clarion note was : "America can admit 
no distinction between public and private faith and on ques- 
tions of finance will follow her old rule of honesty as the 
only one v/orthy of the intelligence and dignity of a free 
people." The greenback had become a fetish, and patriotism 
and good finance seemed to be wedded to fiat money. But 
in the fight to defeat unsecured paper and the subsequent 
right to debase our currency with unlimited silver and the 
great final and crucial struggle for the gold basis, the Club 



49 

was foremost of all organizations for national faith and honest 
money. 

There is necessarily a brief note of sadness in an occasion 
like this, but it does not impair the harmony of the occasion, 
but rather is in accord with it. It is the reminiscences of the 
good fellows, of the splendid characters, of the honest, old 
school and generous men who have departed. We mourn their 
loss as we rejoice that there came into our lives the inestimable 
privilege of knowing them in the intimacy of the family life 
of the Club. It is the alleviation of sorrow which makes 
it finally a blessing that it inspires with the mellowing of age 
recollections of all that was best and most lovable in those 
who have departed. 

Of the large membership of the Club, for it is one of the 
largest in the country, there are only twenty-five men living 
who were here when I became a member. 

It is the special merit of our organization that it is one 
of the few which has been able to unite efficiency in public 
afl:'airs with the highest development on the social side. No 
club, organized purely for social purposes, attracts within its 
walls such a large and frequent attendance of members. 

I feel that I cannot better close my tribute to the Club 
and my thanks to you than by narrating an incident concern- 
ing General Washington, which I heard from the late Duke 
d'Aumale, one of the sons of Louis Philippe. The Duke said 
that his father, at the time of the revolution in France, was an 
exile in this country. He was a guest for a long time of Gen- 
eral Washington at Mount Vernon. Louis Philippe said to the 
General one day, that in the course of his long career as a 
soldier, a statesman and President of the United States, there 
must occur to him many things which would have been better 
if he had done or said otherwise. To which General Wash- 
ington answered, "1 have never in my whole life done any- 
thing which I regret or said anything which I care to recall." 
The Duke said that often his father, then King of France, 
was urged to make declarations or to take positions and that 
his answer frequently was, "If I do that, I cannot say after- 
wards what General Washington said to me." 

So, my friends, in looking back over the history of our 



50 . 

Club, from its organization until to-night, we can proudly say 
it never made a mistake. It never took any action which in 
the retrospect it regrets, and never in its public utterances 
has said anything which it wishes to recall. 



Address by HON. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW as 

Presiding Officer at the Meeting of the Building 
of the Railroad Branch, Young Men's Christian 
Association on the Occasion of Closing the Old 
Building for Removal to the New, May 28, 1914. 

LadiI'S and Genti.i-:m!:n : In the life of every beneliccni. 
association tliere are interesting ])eriods. This is particulai'ly 
so if the life has been one of growth and expansion. This 
organization, which started in a very small way thirty-five 
years ago, has now become one of the greatest agencies for 
good among the employees of the railways of the country. It 
has demonstrated its usefulness in so many ways that no one, 
either among the officers or the employees, has a word of 
criticism and only approval. 

Fifty-eight years ago I graduated from Yale and returned 
to my native village of Peekskill on the Hudson. Edward 
Wells, a distinguished lawyer of Westchester County, had in 
his offices a number of young men and conducted a fair law 
school. Mr. Wells was more than a good lawyer, he was an 
active citizen in the church, in politics, in local improvements 
and in everything which would benefit the community. The 
young men in the ot^ce decided, with others in the village, 
to form an association for mutual improvement under the 
presidency of Mr. \A'ells. We met in the Sunday school room 
of the First Presl)ytcrian Church. It was decided that each 
member should present a paper and then there would be gen- 
eral discussion of it and weekly meetings. I read the first 
paper, which was on I'aul's sermon at Athens on Mars Hill. 
The paper led to an interesting discussion, and the meetings 
continued for about two years, when the association died. The 
cause of its demise was that its platform had only one plank, 
and that was too narrow for many to stand on. It appealed 
only to the intellectual side of the young men who became 
members. 

The success of the Young Men's Christian Association 
has demonstrated that young men must be appealed to on many 



52 

sides and attractions presented for their physical welfare, for 
the working off of surplus vitality, for social enjoyment and 
for physical comfort. In other words, to prepare a healthy 
body for a healthy soul and active mind. 

In 1858, the year that this Peekskill infant died, some 
very wise and far-sighted gentlemen formed a Young Men's 
Christian Association. 

This speedily grew and expanded, until now it is founded 
and appreciated in nearly every country in the world. It ap- 
pealed to the best instincts of human nature, and especially 
during the period of growth and formation of character. 
Libraries could not describe the momentous results to society 
and the State which have come from the work of the Young 
Men's Christian Association. Its organization and career em- 
phatically confirm what has so often been demonstrated, that 
God raises up instrumentalities to meet the requirements of 
crises in the affairs of men. 

It was about this time that there was stimulated the rush 
of the youth of the land from the country to the city which 
has continued with increasing volume ever since. The rapid 
growth of manufacturing enterprises and the attractiveness 
of the larger opportunities of community life created indus- 
trial centers everywhere and added to the population of vil- 
lages and cities. These young men were beset with perils of 
every kind. Liquor saloons increased in number and pool 
rooms abounded. The appetite for stimulants and gambling, 
always present, was abnormally excited. The loneliness of 
the country boy was his danger and his temptation. The 
saloon was a club, always inviting him. The more promising 
the young man, the greater his attractions, the larger his 
capacity for friendship, the more all-embracing his nature in 
good will for others, the more he was liable to yield to those, 
who, because of his popularity, wanted his society. The saloon 
recognized that in him they had a lode-star to attract others. 
The anchorage of youth is the will. The village and the 
city, under these conditions, weakened the will and ruined the 
makings of a man. The Young Men's Christian Association 
offered to these young men counter attractions. It welcomed 
them to health, moral, mental and physical. It had its gym- 



53 

nasium and other methods of heaUhy exercise, it had its 
library, its lectures on useful topics, its educational branches 
fitting the untrained for careers, it had its games and recre- 
ations, it had its baths, always demonstrating that "Cleanli- 
ness is next to Godliness." The business men of the country 
began to find out that there was in the membership of the 
Young Men's Christian Association insurance policies against 
dissipation, poor service and peculation. 

As an instance, I remember when I was on a Western 
trip over the roads of our system, receiving an urgent request 
by wire to stop ofl:' at Rochester to address a meeting of busi- 
ness men on the question of the erection and equipment of a 
building for the Young Men's Christian Association. I had an 
important engagement in New York in the morning, but I 
accepted the invitation. I arranged to have a locomotive and 
a sleeping car immediately after the meeting and overtake my 
train so that I could arrive in New York on time. The meet- 
ing was a wonderful success. Among the audience were mem- 
bers of every church in the city, including many prominent 
Jews. The appeal I made was to them as business men for 
efficiency and honesty in their service. Sufficient funds were 
subscribed that night for land and a building. I took my train 
very happy, but in the night found myself flying along the 
roof of the car and landing in the aisle with the car on one 
side. The negro porter, who laid along side of me, said, "Boss, 
we have struck something." Happily we were near Syracuse. 
An engine came to my assistance, I overtook my train and 
arrived at my meeting on time. I could not have been in the 
air, awakened from my sleep, more than a few seconds, but 
in that time this went through my head, "I am in a railroad 
smash-up and in a minute more will be killed. The train on 
which I was will arrive in New York in safety, and if I had 
hot gotten off to make that speech for the Y. M. C. A., I 
would not have been killed. What excuse will those young 
Christians offer to explain this tragedy to me?" I have been 
very happy ever since that such a difficult question was not 
put to them. 

Friends, these Associations, of which this Railroad Branch 
is one, are devoted to character building and character saving. 



54 

Character biiil(lin<^", under proper environment, will usually suc- 
ceed. It invariably succeeds wlien the en\ironment has Chris- 
tian associations, but cliaracter saving is more difficult. Jt is a 
missionary work which never ceases. It is especially the work 
of this Association and millions of characters saved attest its 
efficiency. Statisticians attempt to estimate the value of a 
young man to the community in money. That means simply 
his working power, but the value of a young man to a com- 
munity in his citizenship is infinitely greater. In this I in- 
clude his place in the family and the church. The loss of that 
young man, not by death, but by dissipation, is not only his 
elimination, but it is the eiTect of his conduct and example 
upon the community when he goes wrong. 

Every enterprise before it reaches "easy street" has a 
difficult beginning and hard sledding over rough roads in its 
earlier years. Our Association is no exception to this 
rule. In 1875 the late Cornelius Vanderbilt asked me 
to meet in his office a locomotive engineer from Colling- 
wood, near Cleveland. This engineer, an energetic, earnest 
and intense man, described his success in forming a Railroad 
Branch of the Young Men's Christian Association at the 
Terminal Yards at Collingwood. He said the conditions among 
the men, on account of drink, were bad. He could find no 
room and so he assembled the Associate Engineers and Fire- 
men in the Round House. They had induced some philan- 
thropic people in Cleveland to give papers and books. The 
success had been so great among the men that he felt if the 
scheme was enlarged, its opportunities had no bounds. Mr. 
Vanderbilt's reputation for charity and philanthropy he well 
Icnew, and so he came down to make this effort. Mr. Vander- 
bilt said to me, "Chauncey, this scheme appeals to me, I will 
take it up." He called in Mr. Tousey, the General Superin- 
tendent, and after explaining the matter, asked if he could 
not arrange a room somewhere for a meeting. One of the lum- 
ber rooms in the old Grand Central Station in the basement 
was cleaned up, a desk and chairs were put in and the first 
meeting was held. Mr. Vanderbilt secured a most efficient 
Secretarv in the ])erson of Mr. Stockwell, and Mr. Vander- 
bilt i)aid his salarv and all the expenses of the enterprise. 



55 

While the officers of the Company assisted, none of them, I 
think, were in sympathy with the movement. They beHeved 
in individual liberty of the employee to the limit, and if he 
went wrong, not try to save or reform him, but fire him. 
The effect of this initial movement upon the men coming in 
and who must remain at this Terminal was immediately evi- 
dent. The opposition of the saloons and the pool rooms was 
intense. They did everything they could to discourage and 
prevent men from the various departments of the service join- 
ing, but Mr. Stock well, the Secretary, was an attractive, ener- 
getic and forceful missionary. The rooms soon had daily and 
weekly newspapers, monthly and quarterly magazines, a very 
fair library, tables for games without gambling, lectures and 
courses of religious instruction, but not so pressed as to be 
oppressive. Then Mr. Vanderbilt conceived the wonderful 
scheme of erecting and presenting to the Association this 
building. \\'hen finished, it was one of the most attractive 
club houses in New York City. Mr. Stockwell died, and then 
the Association was fortunate in securing one of the best men 
who were born and trained in this work, in Mr. Warburton, 
who conducted it to eminent success for twenty-five years and 
retired at the end of a quarter of a century with the love and 
regret of everybody. I am glad that from the large place 
which he now fills he is present with us to-night. 

When the success of this work was demonstrated, Mr. 
Vanderbilt extended it over the New York Central Lines. As 
we went on railway trips to the West, the Northwest and the 
Pacific Coast, he invariably, when we reached the places where 
were the principal offices of the railroads, called upon their 
chief officers and urged them to introduce the system of Rail- 
road T>ranches of the Young Men's Christian Association with 
proper buildings and assistance from the railway treasury. In 
nine cases out of ten, these railway officials had little or no 
confidence in the work, but the prestige of Mr. Vanderbilt was 
so great and his earnestness so intense that they did not care 
to disoblige him. Not one of theiii, after the experiment was 
tried, has ever advocated its discontinuance, on the contrary 
all have advocated its extension. 

You gentlemen, here to-night, can hardly appreciate the 



56 

conditions which existed in the '70's at railway terminals. 
They were surrounded with liquor saloons and pool rooms. 
These places had runners, many of whom were in the service 
of the companies, to bring in recruits. The percentage of men 
dropped every month for drunkenness was very large. There 
were serious dangers to the public on account of intemperance 
among the employees. The social conditions at the terminals 
were bad because the saloon-keeper got about sixty per cent, 
of the man's earnings and his wife forty per cent. After these 
Associations had been established for a while, the wife got 
sixty per cent, and the saloon got none. The difference was 
evident immediately in the condition of the houses, the appear- 
ance of the family, the cleanliness and spirits of the children, 
the attendance at the schools and the prosperity of the 
churches. 

This farewell meeting to this building, which was erected, 
completed and endowed by Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt, would 
be incomplete without a tribute to the man. It was my good 
fortune and my happiness to be intimate with him from the 
time of his entrance into the railway service in his early life 
until his death. He was so modest and retiring, so shunned 
publicity that he was little understood. He was one of the 
most charitable, thoughtful, wisely philanthropic and courage- 
ous of men. As an instance of his courage, there was a re- 
form movement started at one time against the corruptions of 
the city government. Corruptionists were in control of every 
branch. Mr. Vanderbilt was asked to become one of the 
committee for the meeting. An influential member of the city 
government, whom Mr. Vanderbilt knew well, called upon him 
and said, 'T come in your own interest and as a friend. You 
are one of the wealthiest men in town. Our people control 
the tax department as well as the police, the Board of Health, 
the streets and everything needful to your comfort. You do 
not want to incur the active hostility of those in power, who 
cannot be driven out by this or any other movement. If you 
Ijecome a member of this committee, they will regard it as an 
hostile act and you will become a conspicuous victim of their 
vengeance." When the man left his office, Mr. Vanderbilt 
immediately called up the organizer of the meeting and said. 



57 

"I will not only act as one of your committee, but will serve 
at the meeting as one of your vice-presidents." 

This is an age of wonderful giving. The world knows 
who the large givers are and the amounts they contribute out 
of their surplus for educational, charitable and philanthropic 
purposes. There are members of Congress and sometimes a 
preacher who say the people ought not to accept these con- 
tributions, now amounting to nearly a thousand million of 
dollars, because the givers did not secure their vast fortunes 
in a way which these critics approve. It is the money which 
counts; its income from the investment will come long after 
the donor has been dead and forgotten ; it will continue its 
work in the colleges, in the research institutions to prevent 
disease and to cure it, in the work to multiply the productive- 
ness of the farms and to save the vast annual loss from dis- 
temper and epidemics in live stock, and to create centers of 
education and recreation, and uplift by libraries and schools 
everywhere. Generations unborn to the end of time will be 
recipients of this money working for their benefit. 

There are other capitalists whose charities are unknown, 
the memory of whose gifts are only with the recipient and 
with themselves. I have known several of these anonymous 
givers, but the most persistent and generous of them was Mr. 
Vanderbilt. Representatives of colleges, of churches, of bene- 
ficent institutions of all kinds, I have known come to his office 
in despair and leave it with hope and happiness. Families and 
individuals innumerable almost owe their existence to the con- 
tinued flow of these beneficent and secret gifts. No one but 
himself knew how large a proportion of his income every year 
was appropriated in this way. He was always in the many 
enterprises, church and charity, in which he was interested 
that most important member who makes up, no matter how 
much the deficiency, what the others have failed to do. If it 
had been possible to preserve this building, it would have re- 
mained his monument, but it had 4:o yield to progress. It is 
a happy illustration of love for himself and his work that, 
when this building had to be abandoned on account of the 
great improvement necessary at this Terminal, his brothers, 
William K. and Frederick W. Vanderbilt, and his son, Alfred 



58 

G. Vanderbilt, have most liberally and generously contributed 
the money to erect a larger, a more complete and a more mod- 
ern structure for the present and future of this beneficent 
work. 1 love old landmarks. T recognize that many of them 
have to disa])pear because of the great needs of the newer 
time, nevertheless, it is most fortunate that when it is pos- 
sible, landmarks, which stand for much in the past by way of 
lesson and example for the future, can be preserved. It is 
most fortunate that in the march of civilization across the 
continent, Mount X'ernon was left by the wayside and not in 
the path of progress. If the railway had not been built and 
the river Potomac had become, as Washington thought it 
would, a great commercial highway, A fount Vernon could not 
have been preserved but would have been the site of a thriv- 
ing industry and great hotels. But now in the hands of a 
society of patriotic ladies, it will remain a Mecca for all time 
for lovers of liberty from all over the world. 

I recently visited Bunker Hill. I noted how the city had 
surged around it and pressed upon it. If three-quarters of a 
century ago it had not been preserved, future generations 
would have lost the flower and fruit of the story of the Revo- 
lution. 

We rejoice in the growth of the railway with which we 
are connected and with wdiich many of us have been so long. 
A year from next January will round out my half century in 
its service. This has been for me fifty years of marvelous 
experience, of wonderful opportunities to witness the expan- 
sion of the country and especially of its railway systems, and 
of exquisite pleasure in cherished associations with men in 
every branch of the New York Central, and in every capacity 
in each branch. Equally with executive ofificers have been 
men whom I highly value in the Operating Department, in 
the hreight and Passenger Departments, in the Law Depart- 
ment, in the shops, and in every activity of this great cor- 
poration. In yielding to the necessities of expansion of our 
System, this building is to be succeeded by one much larger 
and much better equipped for the present and for the future, 
which is erected, completed and will soon be dedicated, but 
we can to-night devote our thoughts to the past, we can think 



59 

of the work which lias been done lieve. wc can recall the 
thousands wlio have loved and i)asscd thron/^di these rooms, 
we can rejoice in the yonni^- men who 1)\- the opportnnit}' here 
olTered hax'c risen from hmnhle jxisitions to the very hit^iiest 
in (lie service (^{ the railways of the comitr\-. 

Jf a \oInmc could he written of characters here formed, 
of characters here rescued, of opportunities here availed of, 
of ambitions here aroused, of careers here opened and of 
happiness which has come to thousands, in their own lives and 
that of their families, it would be one of the most helpful and 
instructive works in any library in the world. 



Speech of HON. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW at 
the Grave of Lafayette in Paris, on the Morning 
of the Fourth of July, 1914. 

Ladies and Gentlemen : I have rarely participated in 
a more interesting ceremony than this. I did not know until 
yesterday afternoon the story of the last resting place of La- 
fayette and the history surrounding it. I am sure that few 
Americans know this story. It illustrates better than anything 
two conceptions of liberty. During the reign of terror those 
amiable representatives Robespierre, Danton and Alarat de- 
cided to clean out the prisons, and they made a battue of the 
prisoners and guillotined in one day 1,306. Their bodies were 
thrown into carts which were driven out into what was then 
the country around Paris and thrown into a ditch. 

These victims had been guilty of no crime, many of them 
had never been tried, they were held because information had 
been filed with the Government against them by spies or 
enemies. The Government under the motto of Liberty, Equal- 
ity and Fraternity was so fearful of their power that they 
killed all who were opposed to or suspected by them of being 
hostile to their continuing in office. When the terror was 
over and orderly government and law was restored the fam- 
ilies of these victims purchased the ground in which they w^ere 
buried and a large tract around it. They surrounded the ceme- 
tery with a high wall. They then in the adjoining ground 
built a convent and a chapel. They arranged with a sister- 
hood of nuns to give to them the convent building, the chapel 
and grounds, providing they would care for the grave of the 
1,306 and would offer prayers continually forever. They also 
provided a fund sufficient to maintain the convent and its 
duties. For over two hundred years two of the nuns have 
been day and night before the altar offering these prayers, 
the sisters being relieved every thirty minutes by others. This 
will continue for all time. When Lafayette died he directed 
that he should be buried in the convent grounds next to the 
wall which enclosed the grave of the martyrs of the revolu- 



62 



tion. Here we have two rcn]arkal)lc ilhistralions of liberty. 
On the one side of this wall that liberty of whieh ]\la(lanie 
Roland remarked when she stood at the foot of the guillotine, 
"O J.i]:)erty, how many crimes are committed in thy name!" 
On this side the grave of Lafayette rej^resents all that he 
and Washington fought for and all that we Americans and 
French celebrate on the Fourth of July. 

It is a beautiful custom that the Americans in Paris 
should on every recurring of the birthday of their Republic 
place a wreath of flowers upon the tomb of Lafayette in per- 
petual commemoration of what he and the French did to se- 
cure our Independence. It means that as long as flowers blos- 
som and ])loom so long will Lafayette's memory remain fresh 
and fragrant with the American people. Time eliminates 
celebrities. The heroes of one age are forgotten in the next. 
A man represents to the mass of the people the princij)les for 
which he fought and of which he was a leader. His associates 
are gradually forgotten and he alone remains to represent the 
idea. 

\Vhen I was a boy every American school bo}- and school 
girl could easily recall the story of a score of the great Ameri- 
can generals and French officers of the American Revolution. 
To-day I doubt if the great mass of the children of the United 
States could do the same for any, except Washington and 
Lafayette. They have crystallized in their names all that was 
won for the people by the American Revolution and of the 
assistance rendered by the French. Lafayette represented a 
universal conception of liberty hitherto unknown. There had 
always been patriots who were willing to sacrifice everything 
for their own people and their own country, but Lafayette 
gave himself, his fortune and his future for the liberty of a 
people of whom he knew little ])ersonally and the country of 
which he knew less and which he had never seen. It was the 
beginning of that sympathy for the princii)le by one nation 
for another which was struggling, sacrificing and sufifering 
to secure its rights or a peoi)le to win their liberties. Knight- 
errantry had been chivalric on many battlefields, but never 
before to secure or to win fundamental rights for others than 
lliose of their own race or religion. It was the birth of that 



63 

universal idea of liberty which made us sym])athize and help 
Greece and which carried Lord Byron in his romantic gal- 
lantry to their assistance. It was the same principle which 
carried ns into our neighboring island of Cuba for its deliv- 
erance. 

Right-minded peoi)le of all nationalities are laljoring for 
universal peace. Jt will come when the world understands 
and is ready to act at any sacrifice upon the principles which 
actuated I^afayette and led him to enlist in the cause of Ameri- 
can lnde[)endence. 



Speech by HON. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW at 
the Fourth of July Banquet of the American 
Chamber of Commerce, Paris, on the Evening 
of the Fourth of July, 1914. 

Ladies and Gentlemen: It has been my pleasure and 
a very great one to attend a majority of the twenty Fourth of 
July banquets which have been given by the American Cham- 
ber of Commerce in Paris. All of them have been interesting 
and instructive with eloquence and humor. I miss the annual 
speech of my venerable friend, Mr. Seligman. I think that 
my prosperity and longevity have been assisted by his Fourth 
of July advice to all of us to Hve within our incomes and be 
true to our families. 

I have celebrated the Fourth of July in many countries 
and several times on a steamer on the Atlantic ocean. The 
day is a sad one for an American on the Atlantic. He recalls, 
as I well remember, that sixty years ago the United States had 
sixty-one per cent of the tonnage of the ocean. To-day it has 
less than nine per cent. This is because practical men have 
been replaced in legislation by theorists. The theorists would 
be all right and successful, if the millenium had arrived and 
Gabriel's trumpet had sounded and all peoples of all nations 
were united in one brotherhood and singing the same hymns. 
Germany, in the meantime, within the last quarter of a cen- 
tury has abandoned her theorists, and her practical men of 
experience and wise statesmanship have made her from noth- 
ing the second maritime power of the world. 

Sixty years ago the Fourth of July orator was most 
eloquent on the flag of his country flying from American ships 
on every sea and in every port of the world. Now the Ameri- 
can circles the globe and never meets an American ship carry- 
ing the flag of his country. I love to recall the old Fourth of 
July of sixty and seventy years ago, when in every village the 
veterans at sunrise fired the old cannon, the church bells rang, 
the procession went round the streets with the old soldiers 
of previous wars in carriages, the people gathered in the grove 
and listened to the reading of the Declaration of Independence 



66 



and the inspiration of the oration. The small boy lired his 
pistol and his crackers, burned his fingers and his face with 
powder and was a recruit in the future at the call of his 
country. Now there is no sunrise gun, no procession, no 
oration, everybody goes on a picnic, the children eat too much 
cake, drink too much lemonade, fill up with ice cream and 
remember the Fourth of July as stomach-ache day. But under 
our new dispensation it is what the eugenics call a sane and 
safe Fourth of July. 

Americans can celebrate the Fourth of July and bring its 
spirit anywhere in the world. This year it will be significant 
in England because it is a part of the celebrations of the hun- 
dred years of peace between English speaking peoples. But 
it is celebrated with more sentiment and fervor by Americans 
away from home in France than in any country, for Lafayette 
and Rochambeau equally with W^ashington made the Fourth 
of July possible. French aid, French armies and French gal- 
lantry joining with the American army saved liberty for the 
United States and the world. So Americans can say of the 
French on the Fourth of July what my old friend, Colonel 
Somers of South Carolina, said in closing a hot discussion on 
the merits of religious sects. The Colonel said, 'T admit that 
Catholics can go to Heaven, so can Baptists, Presbyterians, 
Unitarians and others, but if you wish to go to Heaven as a 
gentleman with gentlemen, you must be an Episcopalian." 

To appreciate the spirit of this day, we must go back. 
We must think of what there is of the old which is worth 
preserving. Everything new is not better than the old because 
it is new, nor is reform always an improvement. The old 
athlete who regained his strength every time he fell on his 
mother earth typifies the American who gets new inspiration 
from the Constitution of the United States. It is fashionable 
now to ridicule these statesmen who one hundred and twenty- 
seven years ago, sitting in convention with their knee breeches, 
silver buckle shoes and silk coats framed the Constitution 
which Mr. Gladstone said was the greatest document ever 
prepared by men at one session. 

The fathers of the Republic in founding their govern- 
ment had several distinct purposes. One was to form a Union 



^7 

of the States which would be indcstriictable, the other that 
the people, instead of legislating in nia^s meetings, shotdd 
elect from their own number competent men to be their law- 
makers. They then created a new department of government, 
the Supreme Court of the United States. The power of this 
great Court was to prevent the Congress from passing laws 
which were not permitted under the Constitution and to pro- 
tect the people from unconstitutional acts, which would impair 
their liberties or confiscate their property. 

This Government has existed unchanged for a hundred 
and twenty-seven years. It has added to the Union thirty-five 
great commonwealths or States; peopled the continent and 
made our country the freest and happiest the world has ever 
known. The fathers' central ideas were to base their institu- 
tions on the individual. All governments the world over were 
built upon classes. The fathers abolished classes and gave 
power to the masses. They encouraged the individual by giv- 
ing him the largest liberty to work out his own career and 
destiny. Freed from the shackles of aristocracy and privilege 
created by law, the individual has superbly demonstrated the 
wisdom of this policy. He has built up cities and villages, 
he has turned the wilderness into farms and the waste places 
into gardens. He has scaled the Rocky Mountains and created 
an empire on the golden coast of the Pacific. He has built 
mills and manufactories, he has developed water power and 
natural resources, he has found and contributed to the world 
for its health, wealth and happiness mines of coal, gold, silver, 
copper and other minerals. He has carried with him every- 
where religious) and civil freedom. He has carried with him 
the church, the schoolhouse and the free press. This process 
and system has permitted the ablest and the most resourceful 
to win great prizes, but in a measure the whole community 
has shared in the results of his genius. 

Now we have a new school. This school would destroy 
the safeguards of the Constitution and deprive the individual 
of the fruits of his ability, energy, resourcefulness and far- 
sightedness. The question is and it is an acute one, will we 
have better laws from the mob than from Congress? The 
new school demands that laws shall be initiated by a petition 



68 

of five or ten per cent, of the voters and j)assed by a plurality 
of a general election. So far in the States where it has been 
tried the busy people become confused by having so many 
questions to study and to act upon, that as a rule only twenty 
per cent, vote, and eleven per cent, or just a majority of the 
twenty per cent, constitute the government. The new school 
also would make the mob the court. It would recall the judge 
if a temporary majority did not like his decision and virtually 
destroy the court. I believe the best judgment of our country 
is convinced that the experience of our first century has dem- 
onstrated that the rights of the minorit}', the permanence of 
orderly liberty and the safety and welfare of our people 
depend upon preserving the independence and integrity of, the 
courts. Our country with two great leaders who founded two 
schools of political thought — Hamilton, who believed in a 
strong central government, in the regulation of everything 
possible by law and in providing every safeguard against hasty 
action by the people; Jefferson on the other hand believed 
that the States should be the stronger, that the central gov- 
ernment should have very little power and that there should 
be the fewest possible laws. His famous maxim was, "That 
government is best which governs least." The Republican 
Party retains the principles of Hamilton in the main. In the 
changes of a century The Democratic Party, which was 
founded by Jefferson, has repudiated Jefferson and adopted 
the principles of Hamilton. It believes in strengthening in 
every way the power of the central government. The Presi- 
dency has grown in power until our chief Magistrate exer- 
cises more authority than the Czar of Russia. Pie initiates 
laws, calls Congress together and tells the Senate and the 
House of Representatives that they must pass them, and the 
Senate and the House of Representatives with little hesitation 
obey. The people seem to like this change in the spirit of our 
institution but it makes our executives all powerful and our 
legislators rubber stamps. 

The new system, the new idea is rapidly developing into 
control by the government of all business. The railways are 
the arteries of production and commerce and their prosperity 
is the sure barometer of the prosperity of the country. The 



69 

control by the government of the raih'oads is now complete 
but without the government assuming any responsibility. 
With the government's approval the wages of the employees 
have been increased within the last two years sixty millions 
of dollars annually on the roads East of Chicago, and many 
more millions have been added to the expenses of the rail- 
roads by full crew laws which are foolish and unnecessary, by 
regulation of the Interstate Commerce Commission and taxes. 
The railroads have no way of meeting these increased expenses 
except by increasing rates. The government has hesitated for 
many months to give relief which is so plainly needed that 
every business man in the United States thinks it ought to be 
done. 

A government official said to me, "When the prophet 
Elijah asked the widow for some breakfast, she said that she 
and her son were starving, that they had only enough meal 
in the barrel and oil in the can for one cake and that she and 
her son were going to eat that cake and then die. But Elijah 
said, "Keep taking meal out of the barrel and oil out of the 
can and they will never fail." The widow had faith, she fed 
Elijah, her son and herself and the whole neighborhood while 
the famine lasted. The more meal she took out of the barrel 
without any being put into it. and the more oil she brought out 
of the can without any fresh oils being added, the more meal 
there was left in the barrel and the more oil in the can. 
"Now," said the official, "why cannot the railroads do that?" 
I said, "Because the government do not give us Elijah." I 
have been in active business for about sixty years and during 
the whole of that time general prosperity and good crops have 
gone hand in hand together. There never has been a time 
when the earth has brought out its abundance and the harvests 
have created new wealth that there did not follow an im- 
I)rovement in every business and booming times in every de- 
])artment of American investment, endeavor and employment. 
We are assured this year the largest crops in the history of 
our country, the wheat fields give two hundred and fifty mil- 
lions more bushels than ever before, and corn, barley, rye, 
oats and cotton show cciual phenomenal increases. From all 
exDerience there should be brilli.'uit markets and wonderful 



70 

prosperity, but instead neither the exchanges nor the factories 
nor the labor employment bureau responded. What is the 
matter? President Wilson is able and honest. He is the best 
educated and most cultivated of our Presidents. He is an 
eminent college president and professor, but never was in con- 
tact with business. He said to representatives of the 36,000 
manufacturers from the West who complained to him that 
they were working on half time with half employment because 
of uncertainty as to legislation, that there was no reason why 
they should not be funning their factories on full time and 
reemploy all their employees. "Gentlemen," he said in effect, 
"the trouble with you is not the law^s which have been passed 
by this Congress or which we propose to pass ; your trouble 
is purely psychological. Go home and think prosperity is 
here, and you will find it here." A lady said to the son of a 
neighbor, "P)obby, how is your father?" Bobby said, "He is 
very sick, madam, and we are afraid he wnll die." The lady 
said, "Bobby, tell your father to think that he is well, and he 
will be all right in a few days." Some time afterwards the 
lady met Bobby again and said, "Bobby, how is your father?" 
"Well," said Bobby, "madam, he thinks he is dead and so we 
buried him." 

We have the new tariff" law and the new currency law 
which most people approve and we can adjust our business 
to the new conditions they create. But Congress is now pass- 
ing laws called Anti-trust which give to the government the 
power to examine into every business whether by an individual 
or by a corporation and to ascertain all its secrets and reveal 
them. This legislation is said to have two objects, one to pro- 
mote competition, the other to prevent competition. The busi- 
ness world says to the President, to the Cabinet and to the 
Congress of all parties, "Give us a rest." I am an optimist 
by nature and more so by experience. The American people 
who have accomplished such wonders in the last century, in 
the last fifty years, in the last quarter of a century have still 
the same vigor, the same enterprise and the same hopeful 
audacity as of old. They cannot stand uncertainty. Give 
them the rules of the game whatever they are and they will 
play the game to the limit and as they have always done to 



71 

success. Their resourcefulness still exists. At Hammonds- 
port, New York, the other day at a trial trip of the hydro- 
plane which is to cross the Atlantic, they had an American 
flag, but none of England or France which countries she is tof 
visit. A citizen had two cancelled postage stamps, one English 
and the other French. He pasted one on one side of the 
hydroplane and the other on the other side, and then she went 
in the air carrying the emblems of the United States, France 
and England. 

The wonderful report of Admiral Fletcher detailing the 
gallantry of our sailors and soldiers at Vera Cruz shows that 
the spirit of the Revolution and of the Civil War on both 
sides is still as brilliant and full of self-sacrifice and patriotism 
as ever. 

Liberty has now more oracles and priests than ever before. 
They interpret her teachings in many and diverse ways. They 
appeal to passion, to self-interest, to prejudice, to class hatred. 
But she is the same pure spirit which guided the patriot armies 
from Bunker Flill to Yorktown, inspired the immortal Dec- 
laration of Independence and granted wisdom to the framers 
of the Constitution. To maintain in spirit, in legislation and 
in national life her beneficent principles is the glorious mission 
af our sister Republics, the United States and France. 



THE TERCENTENARY OF OUR CHARTERED 
COMMERCE 

Written by HON. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW for 
the New York Times, November 1, 1914, Tell- 
ing its Story Since the Early Days of the Dutch 
and of the Lessons that May be Learned From 
it for the Future 

The first quarter of each century has been distinguished 
by events which have had a marked influence on the history 
of the world. In 13 14 the union was formed between France 
and Navarre which created a new and dominant power in 
Europe. 

In 141 5, one hundred years later, was fought the battle 
of Agincourt which gave France to England for a long period 
of years. In 1610, two hundred years later, Henry IV. was 
murdered, the tendency toward liberalism was stopped, and 
France came under the baleful influence of Mary de Medici. 
After the brilliant government of Cardinal Richelieu, the Edict 
of Nantes was repealed, the Huguenots scattered over the 
world, to the great enrichment of other nations and the par- 
alysis of French industry. 

In 1814 the battle of Waterloo ended the career of Napo- 
leon and restored Europe for a time to Bourbon and autocracy. 

We turn to Germany and find the same fateful first quar- 
ter of the century; 1508 to 1517 saw the rise of Luther and 
the most significant revolution of the Middle Ages. In 1618 
began the thirty years' war, which destroyed cities and wasted 
the country, and after awful horrors and slaughter left Ger- 
many seriously depopulated and impoverished. But in 1813 
arose the Order of the Iron Cross, which drove Napoleon 
from Germany, aroused German patriotism, and regained Ger- 
man independence. 

Great Britain in her history singularly illustrates the same 
rule. In T215 the Barons at Runnymede wrung from King 



74 

John Magna Charta, the genesis of our own Hberties. In 13 14, 
one hundred years hiter, tlie battle of Bannockburn united 
England and Scotland; 161 1 witnessed the completion of our 
authorized version of the Bible. Its influence has been incal- 
culable upon English and American history, upon literature 
in the English language and upon the language itself; 1614 
was the zenith of the activities of Shakespeare, and the battle 
of Waterloo in 1815 gave to Great Britain her escape from 
the peril to her empire and her commerce and a commanding 
influence on the ocean and in the afifairs of Europe, Asia, and 
Africa. The victory at Blenheim in 1704 was followed by 
the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, which conceded the things 
necessary for the British Empire of the future. 

The year 1914 is one of the most fateful, not only to the 
United States but to the w^orld. The most gigantic war of 
all the centuries is in progress. Eight hundred millions of 
people, one-half of the inhabitants of the earth, are in deadly 
conflict, with engines of destruction never imagined by the 
soldiers of the past. -The destinies of dynasties, the bound- 
aries of empires, the liberties of peoples, the future of civiliza- 
tion, the influence of Christianity are all involved in this 
titanic conflict. 

But at the same time for the United States 1914 is an 
era of the victories of peace. It witnesses the completion of 
a century of peace between the United States and Great 
Britain. It heralds the end of four hundred years of effort 
in the completion of the Panama Canal. It witnesses the com- 
pletition of the enlargement^ of the Erie Canal. It brings us 
together to celebrate the three hundredth anniversary of that 
small beginning of the commerce of New York, wdiich has 
flowered and fruited in the centin-ies with a speed unknown 
in the history of more ancient capitals into the leadership of 
all but London and rivalry with h.er. 

The often tried and often defeated efforts to find a north- 
west passage to the East are what led to the discovery of 
America and the event we celebrate. This was the quest of 
Columbus and which caused other navigators to "try for an 
open door along the Atlantic Coast and the Isthmus of Darien. 
The failure of their search revealed a continent instead of 



75 

a strait. It gave to the world the opportunity of ample room 
for the development of civil and religions liherty, so remote 
from old despotisms that before its meaning and rcsidt could 
be comprehended a new and mighty nation would become their 
guardian and protector. 

The effort of Philip II. to exterminate this liberty in Hol- 
land by persecution so terrible that it carried one huntlred 
thousand men and women to the stake aroused a spirit of de- 
fiance and independence which turned a whole people into an 
organization known to fame and history as the "Beggars of 
the Sea." These glorious mendicants took toll of the ocean. 
They won their lands from the waves by their dikes and 
flooded them to drown their invaders and persecutors. They 
sunk or drove into ports the fleets of King Philip and ex- 
tended their power over Java and East Indian islands, and 
others in the West Indies which Holland still owns. 

But their spiritual development was greater than their 
material victories. In an age enveloped in darkness they gave 
home and welcome to alien races and religions. The Jew 
was safe, and Catholics and Protestants found equal freedom. 
The Puritans, fleeing from England, had the unrestricted en- 
joyment of religion according to their belief, an open field 
for earning a living by -their industries and the incalculable 
advantage of Dutch schools and Leyden University, at that 
time the best in Europe. Dutch scholars were leaders of 
thought and their artists of unequaled genius. Their in- 
ventors gave to science the microscope and improved the tele- 
scope. Such were the people who founded New York and 
started it upon its imperial career. 

The discovery of North and South America stirred na- 
tions and individuals to grasp and utilize their treasures. The 
only settlement purely for liberty in all the tragic story of 
those centuries upon the Americas was that of the Pilgrims 
on Plymouth Rock. Cortez and Pizarro were ruthless and 
savage conquerors. St. Augustine was founded in 1565 as a 
Spanish military post and developed no commerce. The Eng- 
lish settled in Jamestown in 1607, but the colonists had to be 
supported for years by the mother country, not even raising 
enough for food. In 1614 they commenced cultivating and 



1(^ 

exporting tobacco, which after some years made them self- 
supporting, but they created no commerce. 

The Pilgrims from their settlement devoted themselves to 
domestic alTairs, but had no foreign trade. The settlement 
of New York between the dates of Jamestown and Plymouth 
was purely a commercial enterprise. It was successful from 
the start, and the growth and expansion of its commerce have 
gone on during three centuries until it has reached its present 
imperial and worldwide proportions. 

Plenry Pludson, an Englishman, was prominent among 
those early adventurers whose tales could draw cash and ships 
from Kings and merchant princes. His story captured the 
imagination of Henry IV. of France, the hero of Navarre, 
but the merchants of Holland were cjuicker and more auda- 
cious and secured his services. Pie made both believe that he 
was the sole possessor of the secret of the coveted northwest 
passage to India. The solid men of Amsterdam gave him 
the good ship Half Moon of lOO tons, fully manned and 
equipped for a long voyage. 

Henry Hudson w^as never in a hurry. He added to his 
English stolidness and tenacity a large measure of Dutch 
phlegm and love of ease. On Wednesday, September 2, 1609, 
at 5 o'clock in the afternoon, according to the log of the Half 
Moon, she dropped anchor at Sandy Hook. She remained 
in the lower bay ten days to give time for the Captain and his 
Holland staft to reflect on the situation. September 12 she 
raised anchor, sailed through the Narrows and anchored off 
the Battery. The next day, September 13, she made eleven 
and a half miles to Spuyten Duyvil Creek. There Hudson's 
boats discovered that ^Manhattan was an island, and old New 
York owes to him this important information. On the 14th 
the Half Moon reached Yonkers, and, being satisfied that he 
had found the strait leading to the goal of his quest, the north- 
west passage to India, he continued up the Hudson until the 
shallows near Troy groiuidcd his ship and dispelled his hopes. 
He reached New York on his returning tri]) October 4, having 
in the month demonstrated the navigability of the river and 
gained immortality for himself by giving his name to this 
most pictures(|uc of rivers. When he cleared the harbor and 



17 

pointed his prow for Europe, the Half ]\Ioon became the 
pioneer of the ocean saihng vessels which for three centuries 
in large fleets have made New York the chief port of the 
Western Hemisphere. 

Hudson, having failed in his contract to find the north- 
west passage, stayed in England on his return, but sent the 
Half Moon and the maps and accounts of his discoveries to 
the' East India Company at Amsterdam. The Half Moon, 
the pioneer of shipping to and from New York, was lost in 
1615 in the Indian Ocean. These farsighted and enterprising 
Dutch merchants saw the possibilities in Hudson's report and 
maps of the new country he had found and explored. 

The Dutch had not three hundred years ago advanced 
to our present distrust of the individual and fear of his suc- 
cess. They encouraged their citizens to undertake adventur- 
ous enterprises all over the world by promising them large 
returns if successful, not from the State but from the results 
of their discoveries. The explorers took all risks and perils, 
and if unsuccessful the losses, but were protected in their con- 
quests until amply repaid. The East India Company, operat- 
ing in the East Indies and eastern coasts of Asia and Africa, 
had not only gained riches, but added enormously to the 
wealth and prosperity of their country. 

The present colonies of Holland in the East came from 
the East India Company. In 16 12 the enterprising merchants 
of Amsterdam fitted out two ships to confirm Hudson's dis- 
coveries, one under Captain Christensen, the other under Cap- 
tain Block, They built four huts for trading purposes on 
what is now 39 Broadway, and there the commerce of New 
York began. 

Here we pause to pay tribute to Captain Block. His ship 
was burned in our harbor. ' Nothing daunted, this intrepid 
navigator turned ship builder. The magnitude of the task 
would have been appalling to the average man, but Captain 
Block was a pioneer of civilization. With no shipyards, no 
tools but those saved from the wreck, no machinery for cut- 
ting down the trees or sawdng the logs, the Captain hewed out of 
the primeval forest the materials for a ship forty-four and a 
half feet from stem to stern and eleven and a half feet wide. 



78 

He named her the "Onrush," or Restless. Her activities justi- 
fied her name. She sailed lightly through the perils of Hell 
Gate, rounded Cape Cod on the north and anchored in Delaware 
I»ay on the south. Her intelligent Captain made maps, whose 
accuracy was subsequently verified, of Long Island Sound 
and the coasts of Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecti- 
cut. This modest hero, whose achievements have little men- 
tion in our histories, whose only monument is Block Island, 
whose reward was to be made commander twelve years after, 
in 1624, of the whole fleet sailing between this port and Hol- 
land, was the founder of the mercantile marine of the United 
States. 

"The States General of the Free United Netherlands Prov- 
inces" published in March, 1614, that they would "grant to 
whoever shall resort to and discover new lands and places" 
the right that they "shall alone be privileged to make four 
voyages to such lands and places from these countries exclu- 
sive of every other person until the aforesaid voyages shall 
be concluded." The return of Captain Block with his report 
of his discoveries and statement of the possible commercial 
opportunities of the territories along the Hudson and Long 
Island Sound aroused the Dutch merchants to renewed efforts. 
They formed a company called the New Netherlands Com- 
pany, and this company on the nth of October, 1614, was 
granted a charter from the Government of which the follow- 
ing are the main features : 

Grant of exclusive trade to New Netherlands. The 
States General of the United Netherlands to all to whom these 
presents shall come, greeting: Whereas Garrett Jacob Wits- 
sen, ancient Burgomaster of the City of Amsterdam (and 
certain other persons named) all now represented in one com- 
pany have respectfully represented to us that they the peti- 
tioners after great expense and damages by loss of ships and 
other dangers have during the present year discovered and 
found with the above-named ships certain new land situated 
in America between New France and Virginia, the sea coasts 
whereof are between forty and forty-five degrees of latitude, 
and now called "New Netherlands"; and whereas we did in 
the month of March last, for the promotion and increase of 



79 

commerce, cause to be published a certain general consent and 
charter, setting forth that whoever should thereafter discover 
certain new havens, lands, or passages might frequent or cause 
to be frequented for four voyages such newly discovered and 
found places, to the exclusion of all others from visiting or 
frequenting the same from the United Netherlands until the 
discoverers or finders shall themselves have completed the 
said four voyages, or cause them to be completed within the 
time described for that purpose under the penalties expressed 
in our said Octroy, etc. ; they request that we shall record to 
them due account of the aforesaid Octroy in due form. 

Which being considered, we therefore in our assembly 
have heard the pertinent report of said petitioners * * * have 
consented and granted, and by these presents do consent and 
grant to said petitioners now united into one company, that 
they shall be privileged exclusively to frequent or cause to be 
visited the above newly described lands in America, between 
New France and Virginia * * * for four voyages within 
the time of three years commencing the ist of January, 1615, 
next ensuing, or sooner, without it being permitted to any 
other person from the United Netherlands to sail to or fre- 
quent the said newly described lands, havens, or places, either 
directly or indirectly, on pain of confiscation of the vessel 
and cargo wherewith infraction hereof shall be attempted, 
and a fine of fifty thousand Netherland ducats for the benefit 
of said discoverers or finders ; provided nevertheless that by 
these present we do not intend to prejudice or diminish any of 
our former grants or charters, and it is also our intention that 
if any disputes or differences from these are developed they 
shall be decided by ourselves. 

We therefore expressly command all governors, justices, 
officers, and inhabitants of the aforesaid United Countries that 
they allow the said company peaceably and quietly to enjoy 
the whole benefit of this our grant and consent, ceasing all 
contradictions and obstacles to the contrary. For such we 
have found to appertain to the public service. 

Given under our seal, paraph, and the signature of our 
secretary. 

At The Hague, the nth of October, 1614. 



8o 

Thus, on October ii, 1614, not by accident, but by able 
and farsighted citizens of Holland, recognizing the wonderful 
situation and limitless future of our unequalled harbor and 
an enlightened Government encouraging their efiforts, was be- 
gun in a formal way and under solemn official sanction the 
commerce of New York. 

The first report of the beginning of commerce came two 
years later from Captain Cornelius Hendricksen, who re- 
ported to the Government that he had for his masters, the 
New Netherlands Company, "discovered certain lands in 
North America and did trade there with the Indians, said 
trade consisting of sable furs, robes and skins. He hath 
found the country full of trees and hath seen in said country 
bucks and does, turkeys and partridges." 

Trade developed rapidly. Present business was profitable 
and increasing. So at the end of four years the New Nether- 
lands Company applied for and was granted by special license 
an extension for three years until June 23, 1621. When the 
company asked in 162 1 that instead of special license the char- 
ter should be renewed for a long period, the request was de- 
nied. In this connection there develops an interesting and 
epoch-making chapter in the history both of Holland and of 
New York. 

The eighty years war for Dutch independence had re- 
sulted in 1609 in the impoverishment of Spain, and Holland 
becoming one of the richest and most enterprising nations in 
Europe. Spain asked for a truce until 1621 which was agreed 
upon. This truce was followed immediately b)^ activities in 
exploration and of commerce by Holland and its first result 
was the sailing of Hudson and the Half Moon a few days 
after. 

In 1579 the Dutch, having revolted from the tyranny and 
persecutions of the Spanish, had formed a confederation of 
the seven provinces and united them as States in the union 
of the United Netherlands. This successful federated Gov- 
ernment of independent States gave the idea and methods to 
our forefathers for the creation of the Republic of the United 
States. When the truce of 1609 to 1621 was ended by Spain 
renewing the war for the subjugation of the Netherlands, the 



8i 

Dutch Government in denying the extension of the charter 
of the New Netherlands Company notified the petitioners that 
they must form a new and more powerful corporation which 
could not only increase the commerce of the mother country, 
but be sufficiently strong in armed ships to protect it. 

Acting upon this suggestion, the members of the com- 
pany invited a general subscription for a new corporation to 
take over the business of the old and meet the requirements 
of the Government. It was capitalized at $2,800,000, an 
enormous sum for those days, but the capital was oversub- 
scribed $43,261.44. Each of the seven provinces or States 
had a representation in the directory of twenty, proportional 
to their subscriptions. The company was granted vast powers 
not only for commerce, but for war and peace. 

On February 12, 1620, New York lost one of those oppor- 
tunities which, if availed of, change the course of history. 
Pastor Robinson, the minister and leader of the Pilgrim 
Fathers in Holland, desired to bring his flock of 400 families 
to New York. The New Netherlands Company was most 
anxious to secure these settlers, but not having the trans- 
portation or warships to convey them, petitioned the States 
General for both. The States General were exhausting all 
public and private facilities to prosecute the renewal of the 
war with Spain and were obliged to decline. 

If the Pilgrims could have waited a year until the power- 
ful West India Company had its fleet on the ocean, the settle- 
ment of Massachusetts might have been long postponed, and 
under the mellowing influences of our unsurpassed climate 
and associations with the genial and hospitable Dutch, the Pil- 
grim Father might have become a Dutchman. But literature 
and eloquence would have lost some of their noblest and mosl 
inspiring contributions. 

The West India Company in the midst of its activities in 
war systematically and wisely developed its New York pos- 
sessions. The Dutch, acting with traditional honesty, instead 
of taking the land by force opened negotiations with the In- 
dians, and the company reported to the States General that it 
had purchased the Island of ^Manhattan from the wild men 
"for the value of sixty guilders; it is eleven thousand morgens 



82 

in extent." If that is translated in terms of to-day, the Island 
of Manhattan consisting of twenty-four thousand acres of 
land was bought from the Indians for twenty-four dollars. 

Immigration was encouraged, and the price of the pas- 
sage from Amsterdam to New York, everything included, was 
only six dollars, though the time was about eight weeks. The 
land increased rapidly in value. The records show that in 
1640, twenty-four years after the purchase of the island, in 
the settled parts and on the principal streets a lot with a front- 
age of thirty feet on the best business street could be bought 
for fourteen dollars, while in the residential part the same 
sum would secure one hundred feet frontage. In 1656, thirty 
years after the arrival of the first permanent settlers, a census 
was taken which enumerated seventeen streets, one hundred 
and twenty houses and one thousand inhabitants. 

Our study naturally turns to the beginning and develop- 
ment of trade from this port. The first account is the arrival 
at Amsterdam in 1624 of the New Netherlands, which had 
carried out thirty families and the equipment for their settle- 
ment. Her return cargo was 500 otter skins, 1,500 beavers, 
and other things which sold for 28,000 guilders, or about 
$11,000. The first official report to the Government is as 
follows : 

High and Mighty Lords: 

Yesterday arrived here the ship "Arms of Amsterdam," 
which sailed from New Netherlands at the River Mauritius 
(the Hudson") on the twenty-third of September. They re- 
]x-)rt that our j^eople are in good heart and live in peace there ; 
the women have borne some children there. 

They have purchased the Island Manhattaes from the 
Indians for the value of sixty guilders; it is eleven thousand 
morgens size. They had all their grain sowed by the middle 
of May and reai)ed bv the middle of August. They send 
some samjiles of sumnuT grain, such as wheat, rye, barley, 
etc. The cargo of the aforesaid ship is 7,246 beaver skins, 
1 78)/^ otter skins, 675 otter skins, 48 minck skins, 36 wild 
cat skins, 33 mincks, 34 rat skins, and considerable oak timber 
and hickory. 



83 

Herewith, }]\<^h and Mii^hty Lords, be coniiuended to 
the Mercy of the Ahnighty. 

To the High and Mighty Lords : 

Aly Lords, The States General at the Hague. 

Your Lligh Mightinesses' Ohcchcnt, 

(Signed) r. SCriAGlCR. 

This shows that in two years the trade liad about doubled 
— from $ir,ooo in vahie of exports to $20,000. Oak and 
hickory timber had been added to furs. This germ of a com- 
merce which is now the most important in the Western Hem- 
isphere, if not in the world, seems insignificant. That it has 
grown to its present magnitude in three centuries is an addi- 
tional wonder of the world. During- this period many cities 
and ports, famous and powerful then and in preceding cen- 
tures, have lost their commerce and decayed. 

But our city has had a steady and uninterrupted growth. 
Part has been due to its wonderful natural advantages, but 
much to the enterprise and public spirit of its citizens. The 
construction of the Erie Canal opened up to settlement the 
vast territories around the Great Lakes and made them tribu- 
tary to New York. The network of railways promoted and 
built by New York capital have emphasized for our city the 
ancient legend that all roads lead to Rome. 

The West India Company published a table of its trade 
under the title "A list of returns from the New Netherlands, 
1624 to 1635," but includes only beavers and other skins, and 
gives their values at 27,125 guilders in 1624, 35,825 in 1625, 
68,001 in 1630, and 134,925 in 1635. The trade had grown 
in ten years from eleven thousand to fifty thousand dollars 
in these articles alone. The import of general merchandise 
for the colony kept pace with the exports and were about 
equal value during these years. The rules of the company 
were not favorable to general commerce, as they required that 
all trade, whether European or coastwise, carried by the col- 
onists must be brought to the custom house in New York 
(then New Amsterdam) and pay a duty of 5 per cent. 

While we are the heirs of all the ages, we inherit all the 
problems which our ancestors failed completely to solve. The 



84 

currency question vexed our primitive fathers three hundred 
years ago as acutely as it has and still does ourselves. The 
people hegan to be troubled with this obstacle to their com- 
mercial interchanges almost immediately. Their principal 
trade was with the Indians in the purchase of furs and sale to 
them of merchandise. 

The currency of the Indians was known as "sewan," or 
"wampum," consisting of beads made from shells. As the 
colonists had no mint to coin metals, this currency became 
common not only in dealing with the Indians, but among them- 
selves. Six white or three black beads were equal to one 
stiver, a Dutch coin worth 2 cents of our money. As the 
trade of the colony extended to New England, the Yankees 
in dealing with the Dutch used this "sewan," or "wampum." 
The wampum mint of the colony was on Long Island, and the 
issue of this kind of money carefully guarded and restricted. 
But the enterprise and cunning of their Connecticut neigh- 
lx)rs were soon evident. The colony was flooded with false 
wampum manufactured and put in circulation by the Yankees. 
As fiat money and free silver drive out gold, the same inexor- 
able rule in infant New Amsterdam led to the good wampum 
being hoarded and disappearing. Stringent laws were passed, 
penalties imposed, and the Connecticut currency placed on a 
50 per cent, basis compared with the Dutch. 

Financial chaos was prevented by the English conquest 
of New Amsterdam in August,- 1664. They changed the name 
from New Amsterdam to New York and introduced the gold 
standard which happily has prevailed ever since. Thus his- 
tory constantly repeats itself. 

When old Governor Petrus Stuyvesant passed the city 
and colony over to the British in 1664, because he was com- 
pelled by the overwhelming force of the enemy, the city had 
four hundred houses and a population of about three thousand. 

The value of the commerce of New Amsterdam when 
the British gained control was about $50,000 annually in ex- 
ports, mainly furs, and an equal amount of imports. The 
first official report in 1697 under the English flag gave the 
exports to the British Isles at £10,093, showing no growth, 
or about $50,000. The Dutch merchants of New York had 



8s 

not adjusted themselves to the breaking off of their relations 
with Holland and compulsory traffic with Great Britain. The 
exports of Virginia and Maryland for the same year were 
£220,758 in value, or nearly five times New York ; New Eng- 
land £26,282 and South Carolina £12,374 exceeded New York 
by £2,370. New York supplied less than five per cent, of 
American exports at any time prior to the Revolutionary War. 
The value of the exports of all the American colonies to Great 
Britain, almost their only market, was in 1700 £395,000, of 
which New York sent £17,567. In 1750, £814,000, of which 
£35,663 only went from New York, and in 1773, the last 
year before the troubles began with the mother country which 
culminated in 1776, £1,000,369, of which £60,000 was con- 
tributed by New York. 

After the Revolution New York began to forge ahead, 
and in 1791 took fourth place among the exporting States. 
Pennsylvania came first with $3,436,093, Virginia next with 
$3,131,865, then Massachusetts with $2,519,621, and New 
York with $2,239,691. But in 1800 New York took the first 
place in the export trade. In the decade ending with 1800, 
New York supplied 19 per cent, of the exports from the 
United States in the period ending with 1850, 26 per cent., 
in i860, 35 per cent., and the decade ending in 1880, 48 per 
cent. 

In recent years new and vigorous competitors against 
New York have arisen because of the construction of north 
and south railways in the Mississippi Valley, our great and 
increasing exports to Mexico and Canada, and the multiplica- 
tion of ports and their facilities and steamship lines. But 
against all these powerful diversions and local efforts New 
York's share of the export trade of the whole United States 
is still 40 per cent., and of the import trade 60 per cent. The 
total trade of New York in 19 13 was $2,000,000,000, nearly 
equally divided between export and import. 

The exports from the United States in the Colonial period 
were mainly furs and timber, and later tobacco from the South. 
In 1803 our exports began to be varied and to show the ex- 
pansion of our industries. Agriculture contributed $30,000,- 
000, the forests $5,000,000, the fisheries $2,500,000, and manu- 



86 

factures $1,000,000. But it is in manufactures where we 
have made the most progress and rapid gains. Our surpkis 
for export has grown from $1,000,000 in 1800 to $1,000,000,- 
000 in 19 1 3. 

In 1800 the United States was fairly equipped to enter 
the competition for the commerce of the world with the old 
and highly organized industrial countries. In the succeeding 
half century steam had revolutionized navigation, the Erie 
Canal had opened the vast and fertile West, railroads were 
piercing the passes from the Atlantic coast to the interior. 

From 1800 to 1913 the commerce of Great Britain has 
grown from $335,000,000 to $5,500,000,000 a year; that of 
what is now the" German Empire from $108,000,000 to $4,500,- 
000,000, and that of the United States from $85,000,000 
in 1800 to $4,500,000,000 in 1913. Stated in percentages, the 
trade of Great Britain and France is now eighteen times as 
much as in 1800; Germany twenty- four times as much, and 
the United States fifty times as much. 

Three hundred years ago the commerce of New York 
began in a log hut built on the site of 39 Broadway for the 
storage of beaver and otter skins. Venice was still mistress 
of the seas; Genoa, with declining trade, was enjoying the lux- 
uries of her accumulated riches; Great Britain and France 
were gaining commerce for their cities by battles and victories 
on sea and land ; Spain was accumulating the wealth which 
proved her ruin from Mexico and South America. Peking 
and Aloscow were controlling the productions of the Orient. 
Three centuries _of unparalleled revolutions in the power of 
peoples, the boundaries of empires, inventions of steam and 
electricity have so altered the commercial highways of the 
world that ancient marts are achaeological museums and new 
centers have grown by leaps and bounds until they have accom- 
l)lished more in a few generations than older cities in as many 
centuries. 

New York now becomes easily the greatest metropolis of 
the world while all other nations are involved in this awful 
and disastrous war. It is an opportunity which in the interest 
of civilization and humanity we profoundly regret. But with 
ofjjtnrtunity is coupled duty, and in the performance of that 



87 

duty we help dependent peoples who are cut oft" from their 
sources of supply and keep open channels of commerce, needed 
alike by combatants and non-combatants. We should pre- 
pare for these great responsibilities. We shbuld learn the 
wants of peoples whose commercial connections are paralyzed 
or suspended, and our manufacturers should expand their 
productions to meet the requirements of the world. The seas 
and ports of the earth should once more welcome an Amer- 
ican merchant marine, the creation and growth of this mirac- 
ulous opportunity. 

We hope for peace, we pray for peace, and when it once 
more reigns and blesses we will hail with joy our rivals of all 
lands to an open door for the revival of their trade and com- 
merce. 



THE WORLD WAR 

Reminiscences and Remarks at the Meeting of the 
New York Genealogical and Biographical So- 
ciety 

On the afternoon of January 8th, 1915, at a special meet- 
ing, the Society was honored by the presence of the Hon. 
Chauncey M. Depew and the Hon. Joseph H. Choate and an 
audience which filled the Hall. 

Very appropriately, on this anniversary of the Battle of 
New Orleans, the subject discussed by the distinguished 
speakers was the world war in Europe. Those who were 
present and those unfortunate enough to have missed the 
occasion will thank the Publication Committee for the follow- 
ing reproduction of the addresses in verbatim form. 

In a few felicitous remarks, Mr. Bowen, the President, 
introduced Mr. Depew, who spoke as follows : 

"Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : The task that 
has been imposed upon me is a pretty difficult one, as all the 
pages of all the press, with extra pages added, are twice 
a day trying to tell this story — to ask me to tell it in thirty- 
five minutes. I tell you it simply can't be done !" 

Mr. Choate: "The whole hour is yours." (Laughter.) 

Mr. Depew : 'T gave close study to this question when 
in Europe, and was one of that vast army who are now burst- 
ing their throats to death all over the country, narrating their 
experiences, some of which happened. (Laughter.) 

It is a curious and interesting fact that this most frightful 
war of all centuries happens in the semi-centennial year of the 
Red Cross Society. The Red Cross Society is the only in- 
ternational organization since men submitted their disputes 
to the arbitrament of the sword which alleviates the sufferings 
and saves the lives of the wounded upon the battle-fields and 
in the hospitals, and of those who are invalided from exposure 
and hardship. The first of these organizations of mercy in a 
great war was the Sanitary Commission organized in the North 



90 

soon after the beginning of our Civil War. ItS' work was so 
beneficent and eflFective that the fame of it -became universal. 
This led, in 1864, fifty years ago, to representatives of seven- 
teen nations meeting at Geneva and forming the Red Cross 
Society. The work of that Society has expanded and it has 
done incalculable service for mercy among the victims of 
earthquakes, floods, tires and other calamities which have been 
beyond the means of the neighborhood and have aroused the 
sympathy of the world. 

When we look for the beginning of this titanic struggle, 
we find its genesis in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. The 
most wonderful constructive statesman of his generation and 
rarely equalled in any period was Bismarck. He was, at the 
beginning of the war and had been for many years, the Prime 
Minister and practical ruler of the Kingdom of Prussia. He 
had a great ambition to unite all the kingdoms, principalities, 
duchies and other separate governments of Germany into one 
Empire, under the leadership of Prussia, with the King of 
Prussia its Emperor. 

Austria was the leader of the German Race. Bismarck 
picked a quarrel with Austria and in a short campaign, won 
the victory at Sadowa which humbled Austria and transferred 
the leadership of the Germans to Prussia. He smashed King 
George of Hanover, tumbled him off his throne, seized his vast 
treasures, called the Guelph Fund and annexed Hanover to 
Prussia. That Guelph Fund, Bismarck said frankly, years aft- 
erwards, enabled him to overcome the jealousies of the minor 
German States in forming his empire and securing the leader- 
ship to Prussia's King. 

France had occupied for a long time the leading place in 
Europe in international influence, in literature, the arts and 
industries. To secure Germany the position held by France, it 
was necessary by war to rrush the empire of the Third Na- 
poleon. The corruptions of that government were so great 
and had so weakened the army and the patriotism of the peo- 
ple, that the conquest was not difficult, provided France could 
be isolated and the other great Powers induced to keep their 
hands off. Here came one of the greatest triumphs of diplo- 
macy. Bismarck succeeded in so intensifying the fears and 



91 

animosities between Great Britain and Russia that he brought 
them to the verge of war. Then, with a clear field, he invaded 
France and in a short campaign, ended French Power at Se- 
dan and crowned King William of Prussia, Emperor of Ger- 
many at Versailles. 

Having thus united the States of Germany, he thought it 
necessary for Germany's future development to render France 
helpless, as to power or influence. He imposed in the Treaty 
of Peace, terms so severe that, not only Bismarck but all the 
statesmen of Europe, felt that it would be impossible for 
France ever to rise to a position where she would be a factor, 
except under the dictation of Germany, in the affairs of Eu- 
rope. He took from France her two richest provinces, Alsace 
and Lorraine, and annexed them to Germany. He imposed a 
fine upon France called an indemnity of a magnitude greater, 
by far, than ever had been exacted from a defeated enemy. 
He demanded a milliard of francs or a thousand millions of 
dollars in gold to be paid at stated intervals, within a definite 
period. 

To France, deprived of two of the best contributors to 
her finances, staggering under the frightful debt incurred, in 
carrying on the war, piled onto the debt which was the in- 
heritance of Napoleonic w^ars, Bourbon extravagance and 
Third Empire corruption, this fine or indemnity seemed, in 
the opinion of Europe, to condemn France to hopeless poverty 
for generations. Then occurred the miracle of the nations. 
The French people found, in their savings, in their stockings, 
under their hearths, in the hiding places of their peasants and 
working people and in the credit of their bankers, the gold to 
pay to Germany, this tKousand millions of dollars in an in- 
credibly short time. Relieved of the German army, which was 
kept in France to enforce the payment of the indemnity, the 
h'rench people, with an energy, hopefulness, resourcefulness 
and spirit, never equalled, bent their individual and united 
energies to the resurrection and rehabilitation of their country. 
They began to be the bankers of Europe. They loaned to 
Russia two thousand millions of dollars and hundreds of mil- 
lions to other countries. At the same time, they have per- 
fected their railway systems, their telegraphs and telephones, 



92 

and other vast works of public improvement and organized 
and maintained an army, equal on a peace footing to that of 
Germany and a navy the third in the world. Bismarck and 
after him, the present Emperor and his advisors, became 
alarmed at this miraculous revival of French national spirit 
and achievement and the demonstration of its financial and 
economic ability. Some years after peace, I have been in- 
formed by English statesmen, the Emperor laid before Queen 
Victoria, who as you know was his grandmother, the danger 
to England as well as Germany by this ever increasing power 
of France. He asked that Germany be given a free hand to 
rectify the mistake made by the terms of peace, and to reduce 
France by another war. Queen Victoria said, "No," with an 
emphasis which was final and induced Russia to deliver an 
equally emphatic negative. 

Return now to the German Empire and its progress and 
ideals during these forty-four years. The separate nationali- 
ties of states which made up the German Empire in 1870 were 
poor and the victims of jealousies and animosities of cen- 
turies, of warring dynasties and religious revolutions. To the 
young Empire, thus situated, came this enormous gift of one 
thousand millions of dollars in gold. It came to be admin- 
istered for the uplift of Germany by men of extraordinary ad- 
ministrative and executive ability. Bismarck was succeeded 
by the present Emperor who has demonstrated in his twenty- 
five years the highest qualities of a Ruler in the development 
of his Empire's resources and industries, and the expansion 
of its opportunities for trade and commerce. 

We, Americans, speak boastfully and yet our boasts are 
plain truths in regard to the progress and growth of our coun- 
try since the end of the Civil War. But, the advancement of 
Germany, industrially and commercially, during the same 
period, has been quite as remarkable. Prior to that time, the 
congestion of population, forced German emigration all over 
the world. Bismarck said to a friend of mine, "To provide 
for the German cradle, we must expand in territory. We 
must have colonies for our surplus population." The stimu- 
lated industries of Germany have so well taken care of her 
increasing numbers of people that immigration has almost 



93 

ceased. The Empire lias become a vast workshop. It is sup- 
plying, not only the needs of the German people, but is enter- 
ing the markets of the world in successful competition, not only 
with Great Britain but with all other highly organized indus- 
trial nations. 

Under the impetus and inspiration of the Emperor, Ger- 
many has built up from insignificant numbers the second 
greatest mercantile marine in the world. She has become in 
power and equipment second as a Naval Power. Her Navy 
and her mercantile marine working together for the expan- 
sion of her commerce have given her, from an unplaced posi- 
tion, forty-four years ago, a commanding influence in supply- 
ing the needs and meeting the markets of South and Central 
America, of Africa and of Asia. She has entered into for- 
midable competition in the domestic markets of Great Britain 
and her colonies and of the United States. Through her state- 
owned railroads, the German Government has become a part- 
ner in every industry in her empire, not only for encourage- 
ment but assistance, in the export of her products. Her 
banking resources have advanced with equal strides and most 
intelligent administration. Her schools have specially prepared 
the advance agents of her industries to study the wants and 
meet the requirements of civilized, barbaric and semi-savage 
people of different races and continents. Her universities have 
become the admiration of other nations and places of pilgrim- 
age for their young men. She has created a military system 
upon a basis of universal, compulsory service never equalled. 
This has made for her a dominant military class and caused 
her to be the foremost of military powers. Though, she had 
already the greatest military establishment of any nation, this 
last year, when the General Staff asked for two hundred and 
fifty millions of dollars to place the army far and away in 
advance of all others, the amount was voted unanimously by 
a tax upon the capital of the country and not upon its income. 
The industrial and intellectual classes have put the military in 
supreme power in their government. The industrial classes 
and the financial interests believe their safety and prosperity 
are in the largest and the strongest army they are capable of 
supporting, while the teachers of the land have been instruct- 



94 

\n<^ llic }oitlli of every age in the necessity of German power 
and the right by might of the expansion of German ambitions 
and ideals. Here we have the spark which reqnired only the 
match to set the world aflame. 

I came recently upon a passage in the works of Heinrich 
Heine, who ranks next to Goethe and Schiller in influence 
upon German thought, written in 1834, the year in which I 
was born. 

*"Christianity — and this is its highest merit — has in 
some degree softened, but it could not destroy, the brutal 
German joy of battle. When once the taming talisman, 
the Cross, breaks in two, th.e savagery of the old fighters, 
the senseless Berseker fury, of which the Northern poets 
sing and say so much, will gush up anew. That talisman 
is decayed and the day will come when it will piteously 
collapse. 

Then the old stone gods will rise from the silent 
ruins and rub the dust of a thousand years from their 
eyes. Thor, with his giant's hammer, will at last spring 
up and shatter to bits the Gothic Cathedrals." 

It is hardly possible to estimate the influence of the phi- 
losophy of Nietzsche and its subsequent enforcement in the 
long service in the universities of Treitschke upon German 
thought and action. Their philosophy was "might makes 
right"; that German culture is the necessity of the world; that 
nothing should be permitted to stand in the way of the attain- 
ment by Germany of what the Emperor would call "her place 
in the sun," so treaties become scraps of paper. 

In further! illustration and more immediately practical, a 
relative of mine of superior talent and acquirement, was a 
student in one of the German universities — a student in lab- 
oratory work, came in close contact with the professors. The 
talk of the professors at recess was that war was a necessity 
for Germany ; that she was not only threatened by Russia on 
one sicle and France on the other, but was so cramped and 
confined that she must expand; that Belgium could oft'er no 



* From "Gerraania," by Ilciniich Ilcino. Lcland's English translation, 
Vol. 1, pp. 207-8 ; New York, J. W. LovcU, 1892. 



95 

obstacle and as Germany was prepared to the highest point of 
efficienc}', France could be conquered in six weeks; then with 
Belgium and Holland, naturally falling into the Empire, Ger- 
many would have a coast line and harbors on the English 
Channel ; that England was not a military nation and under 
those conditions, could be easily invaded, but before that, she 
would necessarily see that she must yield to Germany her 
supremacy of the seas and give to Germany her unquestioned 
right of the foremost place in the markets of the world. Thus 
a barrier would be raised against an invasion of Eur(>i)c by 
Russian barbarism, and German culture, intellectual, mercan- 
tile, financial and industrial would lead the world. They also 
said that while they wanted to ^eep on friendly terms with the 
United States, Germany could not submit to exclusion from 
South America and the Pacific Ocean because of the Monroe 
Doctrine. There is no (juestion but what these learned gentle- 
men clearly and frankly expressed what is the honest belief 
of every man and woman in the German Empire. 

Now, at this critical juncture, what was the position of 
Great Britain and France? The internal situation in Great 
Britain was more intense and perilous than it had been in gen- 
erations. It was the belief of most Englishmen and of all 
foreign observers that Civil War was imminent. The Ulster 
luen had been armed and trained by experienced soldiers and 
mustered over one hundred thousand. They were sworn to 
resist home rule to the last man. The Southern Irish, to the 
number of over a hundred thousand, were arming and drilling 
to enforce home rule. All efforts on the part of the leaders 
of the dififerent parties to come to an understanding and peace- 
ful solution had failed. The King had called them all to- 
gether at Buckingham Palace and after days of most earnest 
consultation, the meeting had dissolved; the government could 
find no comproiuise and the King despaired. The German Am- 
bassador informed his government that civil war was inevit- 
able. Sir Edward Carson, the leader of Ulster, left the confer- 
ence and went t<i Belfast, where he reviewed an immense 
army, thoroughly armed and drilled, accompanied bv their 
women as they marched, all singing as a battle cry the old 
Covenanter's hymn. 



96 

"O God, our help in ages past, 
Our hope in time to come," 

while Mr. Redmond had gone South to meet an equally enthu- 
siastic and determined army. 

Nobody in England, under those conditions, dreamed of 
a European war. 

France had the largest debt with which any country had 
ever been burdened. It amounted to six thousand of millions 
of dollars. France had to raise nearly two hundred millions 
of dollars a year in interest on her debt before she had any- 
thing for her army, her navy and her civil requirements. She 
had been so frightened as to the purposes of Germany, be- 
cause of threats in Morocco, of Algeciras and Agadir that 
she had strained her resources to the uttermost with only 
thirty-eight millions of people to keep an army as large as 
Germany with sixty-eight millions. She had reached her limit. 
The ablest financiers in France said to me last summer, "Our 
financial position is perilous. The strain of governmental re- 
quirements and increasing taxes is threatening our industrial 
prosperity and financial stability." Nobody in France, under 
those conditions, wanted war and everybody looked upon its 
possibilities with horror. One of the most eminent of French 
statesmen said to me, "In our efforts to keep peace, we have 
not permitted our troops to approach withiq eight kilometers 
of the frontier, while Germany has crossed the frontier in 
several places and occupied positions of strategic importance." 

Austria, of course, was, in her diplomacy and internation- 
al relations, controlled entirely by Germany. Russia had not 
yet recovered from the effects of her war with Japan. Her 
financial situation was acute. Her internal troubles great. 
There were serious strikes, accompanied by violence in her 
factories and mines which were not industrial but revolution- 
ary. Russia was in no condition to declare war. 

It was this situation, in these various countries, which 
misled the military party in Germany into believing that the 
time had come for an immediate and successful war. 

The military mind, in control of government, is always a 
peril to its peace. It knows its own power but has a contempt 



97 

of the forces of a possible enemy and no broad, diplomatic or 
statesmanlike comprehension of the situation in other coun- 
tries. The military party believed Belgium neither could nor 
would offer any opposition to the German armies, marching 
across Belgium to the practically undefended part, next to 
Belgium, of the French frontier. It did not believe that 
France could resist a successful invasion and that another 
Sedan was certain to happen on the anniversary of the Sedan 
triumph of 1870. They believed that it would be impossible 
for Russia to seriously attack the German frontier. They 
thought England entirely out of any possible interference or 
any effort to help France or to aid Belgium because she had 
her hands full with her domestic troubles and possible revo- 
lution. 

So, Austria was told to go ahead against Servia, for the 
Austrian Government was in a state of frenzy because of the 
assassination by Servians of the Archduke Ferdinand and his 
wife, the Archduke being the heir of the aged Emperor of 
Austria. 

The Austrian Emperor, after a long, remarkable and suc- 
cessful reign, during which he alone had been able to hold 
together the many conflicting races and elements of the dual 
empire, was in his eighty-fourth year and the idol of his 
people. In a remarkable proclamation, he called upon them 
to rally to the national standards, to punish the people who, 
as he said, "have been for years insulting and injuring me and 
my house." Never was there such a fateful message. Never 
were a few words weighted with such terrible consequences. 

As always, when racial and religious passions are stirred, 
the unexpected happened. Russia, kindred in blood and re- 
ligion with Servia, was swept by a wave embracing all 
classes, loyalists and revolutionists, patriots and anarchists, 
Grand Dukes and the peasants, in a Holy War, The Czar, 
who had not appeared publicly in the streets of his capital 
for many years, rode about everywhere in an open carriage, 
to be hailed by the populace as the Saviour of Fatherland, 
Servian Brethren and the Orthodox Religion. 

Russia began to mobilize, notwithstanding the threat of 
Germany that if she did, war would be declared, and Ger- 



98 

many promptly declared war. Luxemburg and Belgium, 
though protected by treaties, were instantly invaded by the 
German armies. France mobilized. England declared war, 
ostensibly to defend her faith and honor, pledged to Belgium 
but equally for her faith pledged to France, and above all, 
a belief that in the struggle, whether she entered or not, was 
involved the existence of her empire. 

The weight of condemnation of this frightful condition 
and situation had fallen upon the German Emperor. After 
a careful study, I do not believe that the responsibility rests 
wholly with him. A bit of gossip from a very high source, 
with intimate knowledge and touch with conditions in the 
German governing class, came to me. It was that when the 
Emperor had secured the two hundred and fifty millions of 
armament and had perfected the military machine, he felt 
that Germany was safe. He then took his usual vacation 
on his yacht in the North Sea. The Crown Prince was the 
leader of the war party. He was enthusiastically seconded 
by his five brothers. The war party included the whole of 
the General Staff and had the sympathy of the German People 
of all classes. That the sons said, "If you go ahead and 
get ready for war, we will help you in bringing the Emperor 
(the gossip said, 'the old man') around when he returns." 
When he did return, he was swept off his feet. . 

This year is the centenary of the birth of Bismarck and 
of Waterloo and St. Helena for Napoleon. After a hun- 
dred years most of the ideas which these master spirits rep- 
resented are in death grips in the most disastrous war of the 
ages. Its result may determine for the future whether Napo- 
leon and the democracy of the French Revolution or Bismarck 
and absolutism shall govern the world. 

This is an age of marvels. They are so wonderful and 
frequent that we are no longer astonished at anything. It 
is within the bounds of possibility, if not expectation, that 
forces can be found strong enough to pierce the ether of 
the universe in which move in harmony suns and planets and 
constellations. Astronomers say that Mars is like our earth 
and inhabited. If so, the people undoubtedly worship the 
Prince of Peace. If the Martian philosopher could now com- 



99 

municate with our world, he would discover this astonishing 
situation : 

There are about one thousand six hundred millions of 
people upon the globe. Nine hundred millions of them are now 
at war, killing each other and destroying each other's cities, 
villages and homes. These nine hundred millions comprise 
eight-tenths of the professing Christians of the world. The 
only peoples who are not involved are the United States, 
the Republics of Central and South America, Spain, some of 
the wild tribes of Asia and of Central Africa, the Scandi- 
navian countries and the Esquimaux. I do not include 
Mexico, which is in a state of Civil War. 

Is, then, Christianity a failure? I say NO, a thousand 
times, NO. God moves in mysterious ways, His wonders 
to perform. He teaches the people full knowledge of right 
and wrong and leaves them the largest liberty in their con- 
duct and actions. They assume with their eyes open and 
fully conscious of the consequences, the violation of Divine 
Law. The Old Testament History is filled with examples 
of the punishment which would have followed this kind of 
disobedience. 

There are plenty of illustrations in Modern History. 
The most significant is our own Civil War. We all knew 
slavery to be the sum of all crimes. We tolerated it and 
supported it, legislated for its protection and put the whole 
power of the government behind it, for nearly a century. 
Then came, swift and terrible, the conflict between differ- 
ent civilizations' and ideals and at a cost of a half million 
of lives, the slaves were emancipated. The Republic, freed, 
entered upon a career of liberty, humanity and prosperity, 
which in the half century since the close of the Civil War, 
has made the United States, the freest and most powerful of 
governments and our people the happiest of all the nations. 

The governments of Europe have been, for years, vio- 
lating Divine and Human Law. They have been training, 
beyond reason, millions of their young men for war and 
teaching them the righteousness of the doctrine that "might 
makes right." They have violated treaties, which are as 



lOO 

solemn and binding upon nations, as contracts and honorable 
obligations are upon individuals. 

Passion, hatred, vindictiveness, cruelty and bloodthirst 
are working their worst, but as in our Civil War, there 
will come, from this conflict, national sanity, the end of 
militarism as a controlling power in government and the 
reign of the people, by whose voice alone can, thereafter, 
nations be plunged into war. 

Some incidents connected with my personal contact with 
the beginning of the war may be illuminating, I was in 
Geneva with my family. On the first of August I went 
to the bank to draw money and was informed not only 
by that bank but by all others in Geneva, that they were 
paying out no money upon Letters of Credit or bankers or 
express checks or even Bank of England notes. There had 
been no sign of war and everything was still going on as 
usual in Geneva and had been the day before at Berne, the 
capital of Switzerland. I made up my mind, from long 
experience, that when bankers shut their doors and lock 
their safes, they either actually or psychologically know of 
trouble. I found a train left for Paris in two hours, secured 
a compartment and then informed my family. I was instantly 
up against the most serious crisis in my domestic life. How 
were two ladies and their servants to pack their trunks in 
two hours? The thing was impossible. Any mere man 
ought to know that this was a work not of hours, but of 
days. However, we caught the train. While standing in 
the crowd on the station platform, I heard a conversation 
which relieved the tension. They were two English maiden 
ladies of the spinster type seen often in Punch, but rarely 
met with. One said to the other, in a high key and a sharp 
voice, hokhng in her hand a five-pound note, "Sarah, was 
there ever such an outrage? Here is an English bank note 
which has been good all over the world, since Christ came 
to earth, and these Swiss pigs won't change it." (Laughter.) 
This was the last train which left Switzerland for France 
for the next month. The French trains were all used by the 
government for the mobilization of the army. The move- 
ment of the train was normal, until it stopped at the first 



lOI 

station in France. There was a notice on the wall, on a 
paper, about three feet square, calling all men between cer- 
tain ages, instantly, to the colors. About twenty were there 
to take the train. The station master told me that notice 
had been up only one hour. At the next station, where it 
had been posted for three hours, there were five hundred 
prepared to go. They filled our train, until cars were added, 
making it so heavy that, instead of reaching Paris at ten 
o'clock that night, we did not arrive until five on Sunday 
morning, the 2d of August. 

They stood in the aisles so thick that movement was 
impossible. The women with them fainted and were taken 
into our compartment until we were as close as sardines in 
a box. Every time I put my head out of the door of the 
compartment for air, these recruits, taking me on account 
of my side-whiskers, to be an Englishman, waved their arms 
and yelled, "Vive ! 1' entente cordiale." 

Similiar scenes of those liable to military duty from the 
neighborhoods were taking place at every station, all over 
France. Most of these men, as I saw them, were in the 
late twenties and early thirties, and had begun to make a 
safe position for themselves and their families in their various 
vocations. They represented every walk in life, professional 
men, farmers, shopkeepers, artisans and laborers. They had 
dropped everything. I heard many instances where shop- 
keepers were unable to collect what was due them or pay 
what they owed, and their accumulated and active capital 
dropped out of existence as if swallowed by an earthquake. 
Their farewells had been hasty to their families, but I did 
not hear a single regret or complaint. Each man thought 
that upon him, in a measure, rested the fate of his country. 

When we arrived in Paris, the government had taken 
almost all of the automobiles, taxicabs and cabs, where the 
horse was able to walk. We finally secured a cab which was 
like Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes's famous "One Floss Shay," 
and a horse whose bones belonged to the crows. The ordi- 
nary fare to the hotel, the day before, was two francs. The 
ancient driver demanded forty and got it. 

Though it was so early in the morning, the cafes were 



102 

all open and the side-walk tables all filled with crowds of 
men and women. They had been there all night. The men, 
obeying the notice to join the colors, the women, their 
mothers, wives, sisters or sweethearts, waiting to bid them 
good-bye as their trains left, neither knowing if they would 
ever meet again. 

It was strange to see Paris, which I had left two weeks 
before, never so gay, never so crowded, never so brilliant, 
never so ideally like Paris at its best, while now, the stores 
were all closed, except the provision shops, the streets empty 
and a general air of a city in a state of siege. 

Now, as to the spirit of the people. I have spoken of 
Germany. We must remember that every man, woman and 
child in Germany, France, Russia, Belgium and Great Bri- 
tain think their country absolutely right and that they are 
fighting and suffering in a Holy War. 

The old man who waited upon me at the hotel said, "Aly 
only son went yesterday. I am sorry I did not have more." I 
secured with difficulty a man way in the sixties as a chauffeur. 
He said, "My four sons have just left me for the war. I wish 
I was able to go myself. This means life or death for France 
and for all of us. Do you think England will help? H she 
don't we can't win alone." 

I met a lady whose name stands high in the roll of famous 
statesmen and soldiers of France for a thousand years. I 
never met such a picture of concentrated and intelligent sacri- 
fice and determination. She said, "My husband went to the 
war this morning. My brothers went last evening. My boy 
is only eight or I would send him. If we are beaten, France 
disappears as a Nation, our glorious past is a memory. We 
lose everything which makes life worth the living and there 
is no future for our children. If England will help, we can 
succeed, but not alone. Will England help?" This was the 
wistful cry which went up from every soldier, statesman and 
from every home in France. 

I never can forget the scene when England declared war 
and announced her loyalty and faith with France, Belgium 
and Russia. It is the greatest privilege which has ever come to 
men to have lived and been active participants in the events 



I03 

of the last sixty years. There has been no such period in 
recorded time. In Hberty, humanity, social service and on the 
material side in inventions and discoveries, it has crystallized 
into achievement, the dreams and aspirations of all the cen- 
turies. 

But it is a supreme opportunity to have felt and shared 
those emotions of all the peoples of a nation and sometimes 
of the world, which lifted our common human nature into the 
rarer atmosphere of brotherhood and hope. 

As a boy, I used to attend the camp meetings in the 
woods. The movement was in charge of intensely religious 
leaders and members. When the Evangelist had brought his 
whole congregation, including the strangers who came from 
curiosity, to their knees, there was a moment when voices were 
uplifted and raised in the ecstasy of belief that Heaven had 
opened and salvation was sure. Such was the sentiment which 
swept over and uplifted the French when England declared 
her friendship and support. 

When I left England for France and Switzerland, there 
was universal gloom. No one believed that Civil War could 
be averted. Sir Edward Carson in the North and Mr. Red- 
mond in the Center and South of Ireland were marshaling 
their armies for the war. When I returned, a month after- 
wards, the English and the Irish, the Scotch and Welsh were 
singing, "God save the King," and all parties volunteering to 
the colors. 

Ancient history is an interesting study. It amuses, in- 
terests and instructs those who have time to read, but arouses 
no interest or passion. Yet, there stands out one efifort of 
heroism, patriotism and sacrifice which thrills and inspires 
each succeeding generation as it did the Greeks, three thou- 
sand years ago. It is the story of the Three Hundred who died 
at Thermopylae. So, when the tragedies, victories, defeats and 
settlements, after the war, have been forgotten, except by the 
student and the librarian, the boys in the schools and in the 
academies, the scholars in the imiversities, the preachers in 
the pulpits, the statesmen in the forum, will thrill and be 
thrilled by the unequalled heroism, the unparalleled sacrifices 
and the indomitable courage of little Belgium. Her cities, 



104 

villages and isolated homes have been burned and ravaged. 
Millions of her people, men, women and children are starving 
by the roadside with no roof but the skies and no bed but the 
ground. Their government is in exile, but the prayers, which 
is all these devoted sufferers have left to give, is with their 
sons, their brothers, their husbands and their fathers who are 
illustrating the finest courage of all the ages in trenches and 
on the battlefields. 

We can not dwell too long upon the horrors of this war. 

When it was possible to leave Paris, the city was in a state 
of siege. It recjuired passports, a certificate of residence and 
character from the landlord of your hotel and permission from 
the police to leave. When my party arrived in the inclosure 
of the Prefecture of Police, there were several thousands 
waiting to secure these permits. There was only one official 
to grant them and he took ten minutes for each applicant, be- 
cause the form was the one used to identify suspicious per- 
sons. He asked and recorded the height of each individual, 
the color of the hair and of the eyes, the contour of the face, 
the shape of the nose. My wife has never forgiven him for 
putting on her certificate and in his book a nose she never 
had. I saw that it might take three days or a week to get our 
papers and yet, we were passed around the outskirts of the 
crowd and through the offices first. Our unpopularity was in- 
tense and the protests disagreeable from the angry crowd. 
How did we do it? I can only say I was born in Peekskill, 
Westchester County, on the ITudson, and that explains the 
trick. (Laughter.) 

We found a train, leaving at ten in the evening, but not 
scheduled. P)y the same "Peekskill" methods, we secured a 
compartment, and entered the trainyard with the mail wagons. 
We should have been at Boulogne in four hours, but did not 
arrive until five the next morning. There were no vehicles, 
and we tramped in the rain, leaving our baggage behind, for 
forty minutes, until we reached the pier. We were compelled 
to remain there in the rain eight hours before we were per- 
mitted on board the Channel Boat. The reason given by the 
officers of the boat was that nobody had ever been permitted 
to come on board until after the decks were swabbed and the 



105 

decks had never, during forty years, been swabbed before 
twelve o'clock. The most hidebound, conservative "Stand 
patter" in the crowd became a progressive. I did not stand 
the whole time, l)ecausc for an hour, I found a reserved seat 
on the step ot" a freight car. When, hnally, we were permitted 
to board the boat, there was a rush as if for Hfe, though we all 
knew, she would not sail for two hours. Most of the men 
carried suitcases and traveling bags with which they merci- 
lessly banged those ahead. The situation was relieved, how- 
ever, when I heard a weary voice behind me say, "My God, 
Julia, only to think that we left Pittsburgh for this !" 
(Laughter.) England, with its welcome and hospitality, its 
air of peace, security and content, its uninterrupted daily life 
in every department, business, social, amusements and Sun- 
day normal, was a wonderful relief and gratification. The 
Americans who deserve the greatest credit were the thousands 
of men and women, mostly school teachers, whose tickets were 
worthless and their money gone. Their courage and patience 
were beyond praise. The American Committee for relief to 
our countrymen and countrywomen in London and Paris, per- 
formed most intelligent and helpful service in sustaining and 
sending home the needy. 

Our Ambassadors and Diplomatic Representatives in the 
war zone have won high praise and deserve all honor. This is 
especially true of Ambassador Herrick in Paris, Page in Lon- 
don and Van Dyke at the Hague, Gerard in Berlin, Penfield 
in Vienna and Whitlock in Brussels. I have no doubt the 
others in the war zone did splendidly, but their work did not 
come under my observation. 

I heard a delightful story about one of the diplomats 
whose genius for diplomacy had been discovered by the unerr- 
ing judgment of Mr. Bryan, though hidden from his neighbors. 
It was said that his wife was asked how they enjoyed their 
new honors. She answered, "It's all very lovely, but people 
are too kind. We scarcely ever went out at home, but my hus- 
band, poor dear, since we have been here, has not had his 
dress coat off his back or his knife out of his mouth." 
(Laughter.) 

There is salvation even in the midst of war tragedies in 



io6 



the sense and practice of humor. All the combatants who 
heard of it, whether Allies or Germans, were laughing. It 
seems the Burgomaster, Max, of Brussels, is a confirmed joker. 
When the German Army took possession of the city, the Gen- 
eral commanding oi"dered the Burgomaster to come to his 
headquarters. When the Burgomaster entered and was as- 
signed his seat opposite the General, the General took his re- 
volver out of his belt and placed it on the table with the muzzle 
towards the Burgomaster and said, "Sir, I am now ready for 
business." The Burgomaster pulled out his stylographic pen 
and placed it on the table, with the pen pointing towards the 
General, and answered, "General, so am I." (Laughter.) 

What of the future? The war will end as suddenly as it 
began. The parties to any settlement will be so full of the pas- 
sions, vindictiveness and revenges of this most brutal and de- 
structive of all the contests of history, that they can make a 
peace only upon terms which will give time, rest and recupera- 
tion for a renewal of the fighting. We must be a party to this 
settlement and upon us devolves the gravest responsibility. 

The public opinion of the world has been effective in avert- 
ing a serious crisis. It prevailed in the peace between the 
Balkan States and Turkey, and the Balkan States themselves 
which prevented an imminent European war. But the United 
States has the only public opinion which will have influence 
with either side. The South and Central American republics 
have been too recently in revolution. In Mexico Huerta has 
been deposed and exiled, and -in his place is general chaos. 
Spain is too nearly related and Italy too closely involved, with 
China a negligible quantity in the affairs of the world. All 
the hostile nations are earnestly arguing their claims, their 
rights and the rectitude of their action in the American press 
and through every medium of American opinion. 

A wonderful opportunity has come to the United States 
for the expansion of its commerce in South America and the 
Orient. It is a duty as well as an opportunity, for these 
people require a large number of necessities which they neither 
produce nor manufacture and which have come to them from 
the belligerent nations. But in occupying this field we will act 
in the broadest spirit of comity. When peace is declared and 



107 

the warring nations, exhausted and demoralized, are reorganiz- 
ing their industries for the rescue of their people, we will wel- 
come them to an open door in the markets of the world. 

It would be a fearful calamity if the efforts, subtle and 
direct, to involve the United States in this war were success- 
ful. It is the duty of all our people to support President Wil- 
son in the maintenance of our neutrality. 

But our largest and most comprehensive responsibility is 
to impress upon the negotiators, the victor and the vanquished, 
that for the first time in the history of the world an agreement 
for disarmament can be made. It must not be left in the power 
of a class to declare war, but that must be the right only of the 
sovereign people. The Hague Tribunal can be so enlarged 
that it will become an international parliament to which must 
be submitted all disputes between governments, and with an 
international force on sea and land to compel acquiescence to 
its decisions and decrees. Then out of this war will come 
blessings never dreamed of as ])ossible. Its sacrifices, slaughter, 
ruin, and untold sufferings will be forgotten in the happiness 
and hope which will come from the era of Peace on Earth and 
good will among men. 

One of the most important lessons of this war to us is neces- 
sity of preparedness, preparedness for attack and prepared- 
ness to prevent any nation thinking of attacking our country, 
preparedness as an insurance against war and an assurance of 
peace. The fact that a few far-sighted statesmen were able to 
persuade the Socialists of France to allow her an army of 
seven hundred and fifty thousand men fully equipped with 
every modern engine of war is all that stopped the German 
drive which would have captured Paris and brought France 
into complete subjection. Instead of enjoying the fruits and 
prospects of her marvellous demonstration of unity, patriotism 
and sacrifice, she would be paying enormous indemnities and 
forced tributes and her people in the awful conditions of the 
Belgians and the Poles. Had England believed war possible 
and possessed an adequate army, there would have been no 
war. 

Mr. Bryan says the time to prepare is after the invasion 
has begun, then the farmers with their shotguns will overcome 



io8 

shrapnel shells and lydite bombs and the machine guns and 
drive the disciplined veterans of the enemy into the sea, shoot- 
ing them in masses from behind fences and through the spokes 
of the wheels of their Ford cars. 

Secretary Bryan's sure remedy is to build twelve broad 
macadamized highways across the Continent. Then, if the 
enemy gained a foothold, citizens and automobiles could con- 
centrate! from all over the country. But it does not occur to 
our champion pacificist that the armored cars of the enemy 
would sweep these highways, and, if fired on, would burn 
every house and shoot every man armed or unarmed within 
miles of the roads on either side. 

It is not difficult to draw the line between aggressive and 
defensive preparedness. There is a wide difference between 
militarism and a disciplined nucleus on land and a force always 
ready and large enough on the sea to protect our homes, our 
commerce, our coasts and our ports. 

At the conclusion of Air. Depew's remarks, Afr. Choate 
spoke as follows : 

"Mr. President and Ladies and Gentlemen: In the first 
place, let me correct a false impression. I am not going to 
make an address. Anybody who undertakes to make an ad- 
dress after an oration from Mr. Depew — why, it is like grind- 
ing on a hand organ after an overture on the colossal organ of 
the cathedral, and I can't do it. I speak by the card, and I am 
only going to do what I was asked to do — make a few re- 
marks ; and the card says 'Tea at five o'clock.' It now wants 
ten minutes of five, and the President told me that under no 
circumstances was the audience to remain in this room, or any- 
thing to be said, after five o'clock, and tea is the very appro- 
priate immediate sequel to one of Mr. Depew's speeches 
(laughter) because it is like his speeches — the thing that cheers 
but not inebriates. 

And then, Mr. Bowen had promised to make a speech. 
It has been a little disappointing ; his speech was altogether too 
short. When he speaks it is always to the purjjose. I class 
him always w'ith the sons of Zebedee, as one of the Boanerges, 
because whatever he does is always a success. Didn't he set 



109 

his hand last year to raising $65,000, so as to huy the adjoining 
building, and give us a room for a fit auditorium? lie did it 
in less than three months. And he has got it locked up some- 
where (laughter) drawing compound interest. And I am sure 
he will never call upon us to meet again in this room. These 
gentlemen on the platform have all got cold feet. (Laughter.) 
They are all dreading bronchitis or pneumonia, for while they 
have their backs to the wall, the wall is made up of nothing 
but windows. 

Now I have a duty to perform this afternoon. I was 
brought here for a special purpose, and that is to move the 
initiation of the Honorable Chauncey M. Depew into the fra- 
ternity of honorary members of The New York Genealogical 
and Biographical Society. (Applause.) I believe I have been 
authorized and instructed to tender that distinguished honor 
to him and' to welcome him to the Brotherhood, and to put to 
the vote of this company whether he shall be admitted. Those 
in favor? 

I heard no noes. The vote was unanimous. 

Now it was my pleasure to make the acquaintance of the 
Kaiser, William II, a good many years ago in London. I met 
him there occasionally, but he was always on his good be- 
havior, because we met in the presence of his grandmother or 
his uncle Edward. And I never supposed he was going to be 
such a scourge to mankind as some people now think he is. 
What I think myself I won't say. I am bound by the statute 
of neutrality and by the interpretation of that statute as laid 
down by our distinguished President at Washington. 

I have been perfectly delighted to hear from Mr. Depew 
his experience as a refugee. (Laughter.) I have heard a 
great many of the refugees, and they all told the same story 
before. I never heard one that varied until he spoke this 
afternoon. They all had the same experience, and each one 
seemed to think that he or she was the only one that had had 
any experience at all. But his experience was most delightful 
and most instructive. 

Now, let me speak about the spirit of the English people. 
It is perfectly magnificent the courage and the spirit of endur- 
ance and hope with which they are bearing the terrible struggle 



no 

in which they are engaged, and especially the mothers of Eng- 
land, and the women of England. I don't think anything more 
grand has ever been witnessed on the face of the earth. 

Let me give you one or two instances of how the families, 
the mothers and the fathers take it. I saw by the paper the 
other day that one of the four sons of an old friend of mine 
in England, a very distinguished woman, had been killed on 
the field of battle, and I wrote her a letter of sympathy and 
condolence, and I immediately received a reply which was 
perfectly magnificent. I wish I had it here to read to you. 
She says, "Yes, we had four sons, three in the army and one in 
the navy. The one that you write about is dead, and we are 
very proud of it, and we are glad to have been able to give 
him to the service of his country. Another one has been taken 
prisoner six weeks ago, and we have not the least idea whether 
he is dead or alive; and the third is wounded; and the fourth 
is safe on one of the ships of war that has not yet encountered 
the Germans. But we count it as a very great prize, a very 
splendid reward to say that we have been able thus to devote 
all our sons if necessary to the service of the Allies in this 
cause." 

Well, then, I heard another story from the lips of the 
man himself, the father of six sons. He said he had four 
sons already in the service, and he was very proud of it. The 
fifth son was twelve years old and at school, and he came 
to him one day with tears in his eyes and he says, "Father, 
now talking as man to man (laughter), was there ever any- 
thing meaner than that the Inspectors turned me down and 
refused to let me enter the service simply' because I was only 
twelve years old?" No! You may depend upon it that Eng- 
land is determined never to submit or yield, and she never 
will submit or yield until she has reached the point where she 
can say that this devil of militarism has been so completely sub- 
dued that it will never trouble the world again. 

We met at the Hague eight years ago, on the 15th of 
June, 1907, for the purpose of de^'ising measures that would 
preserve the peace of the world for all time. We agreed to a 
great many things there, and everything seemed very 
auspicious at the time. The gates of the Temple of Janus 



Ill 



were closed — closed was it, or open? I never can remember 
which. (Laughter.) At any rate, the fact was that peace 
existed throughout the world. There was not a single nation, 
savage or civilized, that was engaged in war, and so it con- 
tinued during the four months that our deliberations con- 
tinued. 

The representative of the Kaiser was there, and his con- 
duct seemed a little queer. In the first place Germany refused 
to enter into the conference at all unless it was upon the un- 
derstanding that the question of the suppression of arma- 
ments was not pressed, and the English representative made a 
statement, as he was permitted to do, of the reasons why 
Great Britain thought that the suppression of armaments 
ought to be agreed upon by the nations, and our delegation 
said amen to that, and the subject was laid aside. "Well, then, 
all through the conference there was evidently a hidden strug- 
gle, not manifested by words at any moment, on the great 
question whether the British Channel was to be kept open or 
made possible to be closed ; Germany upon the one side, and 
Great Britain upon the other; Great Britain wanting to keep 
the Channel open so as to permit the feeding of her popula- 
tion under all circumstances, whenever war might arise, how- 
ever long it might be protracted, Germany wishing to be per- 
mitted at any time to make all possible efforts to close it if 
she could. She tried to close it the other day by getting down 
to Calais, but she never got there, and she never will. (Ap- 
plause.) 

Mr. Depew is right in saying that the future is ours — 
I've got two minutes more. — Let me say that : The future is 
ours, and I can see only two possible benefits that will arise 
to us from this terrible conflict. One is that we shall be able 
to serve as peacemakers when the time comes. I don't think 
the time has come yet. I was glad to see that even the New 
York Peace Society said yesterday in an address that it was not 
time to talk about peace yet. And we shall be the one great- 
recognized as the one great power in the world, and we shall 
be called upon I have no doubt to advise and assist and per- 
haps to suggest the terms of peace. And that will be a very 
great service that we can render to mankind. 



112 



And, then, another thing is that this war is going to make 
us all a great deal poorer, and it will put an end to some of 
that frightful extravagance and luxury now depreciating the 
character and quality of our young men and women, especially 
here in New York. (Applause.) Poker and bridge and the 
tango are too much for the education of our young people, 
and I think that all such extravagances as these, as a part of 
the education of American youth, will be put an end to. 

Now the time has come — I see you all look a little thirsty. 
(Laughter.) The teapot is boiling, and if I trespassed upon 
your patience a moment longer, I should be violating the in- 
structions of the President, and my oath of office. (Applause.) 



Speech of HON. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW at the 
Dinner Given by the Lotos Club in Honor of 
Ambassador Myron T. Herrick, January 9, 
1915. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen: When I was a mem- 
ber of the United States Senate and the constitntional power 
of that body to be consulted in the matter of appointments for 
Federal Offices was recognized as effective by the President, 
I called at the White House and requested that an Ambassa- 
dor, a New Yorker and a constituent who had performed bril- 
liant service and won international fame, might be continued 
for another term. The President said : "I recognize, fully, the 
conspicuous ability and distinguished services of your ambassa- 
dor, but I have a theory in regard to diplomatic appointments. 
They are the only way in which the government can recog- 
nize, reward and decorate eminent citizens. In England, they 
grant baronetes and peerages. In France, the Legion of 
Honor, In Germany, the Orders of Different Colored Eagles. 
We have nothing but diplomatic positions abroad. So, my 
idea is to recall all of our ambassadors and ministers; they 
can still enjoy at home the rank, socially, of having held these 
places and other worthy citizens who will appreciate the honor 
can have it conferred upon them." 'Tn my judgment," con- 
tinued the President, "these positions are more ornamental 
than useful, and the principal business can be carried on by 
cable between the Secretary of State and the foreign office of 
any country with whom we have trouble." From my own 
experience and observation, during the half century I have 
been going abroad, I know the President was mistaken. Serv- 
ices to our country, of incalculable value in settling disputes, 
avoiding misunderstandings and preventing dangerous com- 
plications and possibly war, have been rendered by our repre- 
sentatives abroad. Their tact and diplomacy and the incal- 
culal)lc influence of personal negotiation have proved the value 
of the office. 

I remember well when "my Lord, that means war," said 



114 

by Charles Francis Adams to Lord John Russell, Foreign 
Minister of Great Britain, prevented England's interference 
on behalf of the Southern Confederacy and saved, for a time, 
if not for all time, the cause of the Union. 

Americans recall, with pride, the brilliant work in the 
cause of international good-will and the preservation of our 
peace, which has just rounded its hundredth year between the 
United States and Great Britain, of Lowell, Phelps, Lincoln, 
Choate and Reed. 

We have with us, as our guest, Ambassador Herrick, the 
most conspicuous refutation of the President's thought and 
illustration of what can be done for his country and his coun- 
trymen by an American Ambassador. 

When I look at the large number of ex-Ambassadors 
who have come here to join in this tribute to Ambassador Her- 
rick, I think I must assert my claim to be the Dean of the 
Diplomatic Corps of the United States. 

Fifty years ago, as I approached the Post Office in my 
native village of Peekskill, I saw an unusually large and 
interested crowd gathered there. The postmaster was a true 
type of that functionary, in every village in the country, 
who becomes popular with the neighborhood by revealing to 
everybody all the secrets which come to him from an inspec- 
tion of the mail. He was showing to the crowd a huge 
envelope, bearing the seal and superscription of the State De- 
partment and addressed to me. No such document had ever 
been seen in the Village. It was my commission as Minister 
Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraordinary to Japan and a let- 
ter from Mr. Seward, then Secretary of State, requesting me 
to come to Washington as soon as possible and receive my 
instructions. I was not an applicant for the office. Except 
from Commodore Perry's report, I had never heard of Japan. 
I consulted the wise men of the village. The Principal of the 
Academy said there was nothing in his library on the subject. 
The druggist, around whose stove gathered in the evening the 
elder statesmen of the town, said he had nothing in his bottles 
from that country, and Colonel Williams, the general arbiter 
of everything and the most important man in the neighbor- 
hood, the proprietor and landlord of the Eagle Hotel, at 



"5 

which General Washington had stopped during the Revolu- 
tionary War, remarked that nothing with that lahel had ever 
been called for by any of his guests. 

When I reached Washington and expressed some doubt 
to Mr. Seward about such an abrupt and entire change in my 
career, he sent me to see Mr. Burlingame at Willard's Hotel. 
Mr. Burlingame had been our Minister to China and had made 
such an impression on the Chinese Government that they had 
appointed him at the head of their first mission to the United 
States and European Governments. I sent up my card. He 
received me immediately. He had just come from his bath 
and was shaving. Waving the lather brush in one hand and 
the razor in the other, he addressed to me an oration on the 
importance of the office and the delights of the East, Among 
other things, he said, "Do you think, sir, that you are going 
among a savage people? They have a literature which was 
classic when your forefathers were painted savages. They 
will give you a palace to live in and a garden so superbly cul- 
tivated that it would have excited the envy of Shenstone. And 
that you may not feel solitary and neglected, so far away from 
home, they will assign as your personal attendants and for the 
care of your palace, one hundred of the most beautiful maidens 
in the world." 

When I returned to my room, I found about fifty New 
Yorkers there, waiting to hear my report. The next morning, 
all of them, in case I resigned, were applicants for the position. 

The progress of fifty years and its finest illustration can 
be condensed in a paragraph about Japan. At the time of my 
appointment, it took six months to go there or to receive a let- 
ter from there. Now the voyage can be made in two weeks ; 
and when Mr. Edison made his telegraphic circuit of the globe 
with him at one wire and I at the other, I sent and received 
a message from Japan in twenty minutes. At that time Japan 
was under a dual government and autocracy; its fleet was 
junk; its army wearing armor and carrying spears and bows 
and arrows. To-day it has a constitution, a representative 
government, a free press, schools and colleges and one of the 
best-equipped and most perfectly armed navies and armies in 
the world. The fear of its invasion is sufficient to be the most 



ii6 

potential stock in trade of the politicians of the Pacific 
Coast. 

I was in Paris at the time of the declaration of the present 
war. I saw the mobilization of the troops, Paris in a state of 
siege, stores closed, the hotels closing and the city which I had 
left, not long before, never so gay, never so attractive, never so 
much the Paris which draws all the world, changed to gloom, 
empty streets and alarm. There were ten thousand Americans 
there anxious to get home, the majority of them without means, 
because the return passage which they had paid for was on 
German ships, and could not be transferred to others. All of 
them were short of money and the banks would not respond. 
This was the opportunity for an American Ambassador in the 
complete confidence of the French Government and possess- 
ing unusual gifts as a business man, organizer, executive and 
tactician. Mr. Herrick filled all those requirements. He im- 
mediately appointed a committee to relieve the situation and 
help the American tourists. He was the busiest man in 
Europe at the Embassy, but he found time to attend the meet- 
ings of the committee and solve problems which were beyond 
their power. These thousands of Americans could not get 
out of Paris without a passport, and there were not enough 
printed passports, in all Europe, to meet the demand. Ameri- 
cans very rarely need a passport and so few know what they 
contain. Suppose our genial President, Mr. Frank Lawrence, 
was the applicant. The passport would recite: Height, 5 ft. 
11; hair, just tinged with gray; temperament, sanguine; age, 
he don't look it; occupation, a lawyer, but the most tactful 
and eloquent frescoer of eminent gentlemen who are guests 
of the Lotos Club. Mr. Herrick would solve the passport 
difficulty by putting on a sheet of embassy paper, "Honorable 
Frank R. Lawrence, President of the Lotos Club, which is 
the American Society of Literature and Art," attach a seal as 
large as the palm of your hand, colored red and duly stamped 
with "Myron T. Herrick, Ambassador of the United States," 
at the bottom and its presentation to French officialdom would 
lead to the extension of every French courtesy to expedite 
Mr. Lawrence's passage home. 

I went with Ambassador Herrick to a reception by Presi- 



117 

(lent Poincare. There was gathered all the Cabinet. The 
greeting of Mr. ITerrick was such as is seldom bestowed upon 
a rci)rcsentative of a foreign power. It combined the highest 
consideration and the greatest degree of personal regard. But 
Mr. Herrick's influence extended beyond the borders of 
France. He was enabled to get special trains which brought 
his stranded countrymen and countrywomen from cure re- 
sorts in Austria, Germany and Belgium. 

I refrain, gentlemen, from giving you my experiences and 
adventures as a refugee. Fifty thousand of them, who have 
been boring their friends to death in all parts of our country, 
have been taken in by the Ananias club. Some of the things 
which they tell may have happened, if not to themselves to 
others. 

I have always been a student of the careers of successful 
men. In early life, to find the secret, later, because they are 
most interesting. I have known personally nearly every man 
of national reputation during the last half century. It is a 
curious fact that none of them arrived at the goal for which 
they started, but climbed much higher. Abraham Lincoln, 
when he was splitting rails, thought safety, comfort and con- 
tent was to be found in keeping store. A mighty revolution 
needed him, found him and he saved his country from tlic 
revolution. Mr. Herrick was a farmer's boy. To secure a 
college education, he had to work his way through and find the 
money himself. Teaching a country school during vacation, 
boarding around and returning to college with an impaired 
digestion and sleepless nights occasioned by many occupants 
of the beds to which he had been transferred, did not appeal 
to young Herrick. The most difficult, dangerous and profit- 
able occupation of that time was selling lightning rods. A can- 
vassar was generally warned off the farm with a shot gun. 
Herrick was successful. He was destined for a lawyer but 
almost created the profession of a business doctor. Some 
business doctors take a healthy plant and when they get 
through with it the investors have nothing and they are rich. 
I am a sufi'ercr. I am a bondholder in the Rock Island Rail- 
road. 

Mr. Herrick, as a business doctor, would take several rail- 



ii8 

roads which were streaks of rust and total failures because 
they began nowhere and ended nowhere. He would bring 
them together, supply the necessary links, persuade capital to 
invest and at the end return the property to the original in- 
vestors and the subsequent bondholders and sto'ckholders in 
a solvent and prosperous condition. He would take hold of a 
mining proposition which had merit but was a losing propo- 
sition, or a failing and decaying business, cut out the rust, in- 
ject new life and restore them to the productive energies of 
the country. 

But, a man's interest through life grows deeper as he 
grows older in the surroundings of his childhood and youth. 
Herrick saw that the American farms had been exhausted by 
wasteful management. I remember when the Genesee Valley, 
in our State, produced thirty bushels of wheat to the acre and 
now it can raise none. Thirty years ago Minnesota easily 
turned out its thirty bushels per acre, and now only fifteen. 
Unless this exhaustion can be arrested, the time is near when 
the United States will be dependent upon other countries for 
food. 

Herrick having become the experienced and educated 
business doctor, saw that this was the most urgent necessity of 
American statesmanship. The governorship of Ohio appealed 
to him because there was an opportunity to help the farms. 
The Secretaryship of the Treasurer, which McKinley wanted 
him to take and for which he had special training and which 
was a great honor, did not appeal to him because there was no 
connecting link lietween the treasury and the farm. But, when 
he was offered the Ambassadorship to France, he accepted im- 
mediately because of the greater opportunity with the power 
of the position and its close relation to governments abroad. It 
offered a rare opportunity to find out how it is that the fields 
of France and Germany, which were cultivated in the time of 
Julius Caesar, yield more to the acre now, after two thousand 
years, than they did then ; and yield from two to five times as 
much as does the already partially used virgin soil of America, 
after less than a hundred years. 

I knew very well Elihu B. Washburn, who, as Minister 
to France in '71. during the Franco-Prussian War, forty- four 



119 

years ago, had a similar experience to Mr. Herrick's. lie, alone, 
like Mr. Herrick of all the representatives to European Gov- 
ernments, remained in Paris, and he not only protected his 
countrymen but those of other nationalities. He would have 
been nominated for President of the United States, except for 
the overshadowing fame and popularity of General Grant. 
Now, there is no great overshadowing and popular figure in 
our public life. There is a great party looking for a leader. 
There are but few capable or possible for that position. Mark 
Twain once said, having tried it himself, that a man who could 
sell lightning rods could do anything and get anywhere. Her- 
rick sold lightning rods ! 



Speech of HON. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW as Pre- 
siding Officer at the Dinner Given by the Union 
League Club of New York to Mr. Samuel W. 
Fairchild on his Retirement From the Presidency 
of the Club, Wednesday, January 20, 1915. 

Gentlemen : This is a rare occasion. It is one of the 
few in which we can participate where there are no axes to 
grind, no selfish purposes to accompHsh and no ambitions to 
promote. It is simply an unusually large gathering of his fel- 
low members to greet our President upon his voluntary retire- 
ment from office, to express our regrets at his departure, to 
tell him that he is and has been one of the best Presidents ever 
and to assure him, collectively, what he already knows of us 
individually, that we regard him as one of the choicest of good 
fellows. 

In this evening's entertainment, if I may mix metaphors, 
there is no sand in the sugar, no fly in the amber and no flaws 
in the diamond. Nine-tenths of oiu' membership, of nearly two 
thousand, want office. There are not enough to go around, 
and we experience the difficulty which has so torn the gener- 
ous heart and distracted the active brain of a great functionary, 
Air. Bryan, in finding places "for worthy workers.'^ 

But Mr. Fairchild, for ten years, was a member of the 
two most important committees of the Club. Elected and re- 
elected without any protest against this dual relationship and 
this double honor. While occupying these two important and 
powerful positions of a member of the Executive Committee 
and of the House Committee, he also became by acclamation 
a Vice-President. 

Here was a situation which has never before existed in 
our organization. The Vice-Presidency in a railroad or in- 
dustrial corporation is one of great importance in their opera- 
tions ; but in politics, especially in the United States Govern- 
ment and in club life, it is usually a comfortable but hopeless 
tomb. The one effort of a Vice-President is to restrain him- 



122 



self from praying for the resignation or death of the President. 
But, here again, comes the anomaly and also the distinction of 
Mr. Fairchild's official connection with the Club. Again, by a 
unanimous vote of his fellow members, he was rescued from 
the Vice-Presidency and made our President. There are two 
kinds of presidents — one enjoys the honor and leaves the work 
to the various committees ; the other is an active member of all 
the committees and, without seeming to do so, really does all 
the work. He energizes every department, his executive genius 
is felt in the library, in the public utterances of the Club, in the 
reading room, in the cafe and the restaurant. He dissipates 
clouds of criticism before they become a storm. He diffuses 
harmony in the family, bridges over difficulties and diverts 
dangers, clashes and crises. 

Here was particularly the successful effort of Mr. Fair- 
child. When all other efforts failed to stem the rising tide of 
protest or factional fight, our President would give a dinner 
to the combatants. He appreciated the soothing and melting 
qualities of this function when the host is equal to the occa- 
sion, and Fairchild's dinner was always a success. 

This is the most difficult Club in the United States and 
at the same time one of the most enjoyable. It was founded 
as a political organization, but as its social functions and 
opportunities became equal to the best social clubs in the coun- 
try, there came a hot strife between members who wished it 
to be the best of social organizations, and that only, and mem- 
bers who wished to preserve and continue its early principles 
and traditions. The social member was a frequent visitor. 
He had his reserved place in the dining room and his alcove 
in the quiet of the library. He was the beneficiary of that 
axiom of club life, that two thousand men pay dues that two 
hundred may have all the comforts of a home and the rest a 
semi-occasional view. 

The montiily meeting, which in time of hot politics drew 
a large attendance, filled and overflowed the sanctuary to the 
exclusion of the Saints, who resented the intrusion of these 
members. All Presidents have been troubled with this situa- 
tion. It has been the distinction of Fairchild that, with the 
aid of the cinematograph and Chautauqua lectures, he has 



123 

kept the Club up to the highest social efficiency, and at the 
same time alert and alive to its public duties. 

The great ambition of every college man is to be the oldest 
living graduate. He is the pet and toast at all alumni gather- 
ings and has a distinction which cannot be taken away from 
him. The one future of an ex-President of this Club is to 
hope to live to be the oldest in point of service of the living 
ex-Presidents. Choate is that now and receives, when he 
honors us by his presence, the distinction which is so justly 
his due. 

Fairchild is so young and has so sanguine a temperament 
that he will certainly outlive us all who are ex-Presidents and 
for many years serenely hold this enviable position. But, 
when he approaches a hundred years of age, he should so cul- 
tivate his memory that he does not fall into the weakness of 
old age, which is loss of memory. The oldest living graduate 
of Yale College, for many years, was Mr. Wickham, uncle of 
the one time Mayor of New York. The Mayor gave his ven- 
erable relative, who was ninety-six, a reception. At the recep- 
tion Governor Hoadley of Ohio said, "Mr. Wickham, my 
mother was a bridesmaid at your wedding." The old gentle- 
man asked her name and the Governor told him. "Ah, yes," 
said the old gentleman, "I remember her now. She was brides- 
maid for my second wife. I don't remember that wife's name, 
but she was a good wife and a very fine woman." 

It is a curious fact that while dinners have been in order 
for Governors and ex-Governors, ex-Senators and Congress- 
men, military and naval heroes, as well as retiring and incom- 
ing officials of every kind of organization, literary, industrial, 
social and artistic, there never has been a public dinner par- 
ticipated in by citizens from every State to an ex-President of 
the United States. I can imagine no reason, except that he 
drops from the pinnacle, the highest pinnacle, and before his 
fall is arrested, he is below the average citizen. The average 
citizen looks upon his ex-President with curious and unpracti- 
cal eyes. He does not want him to practice law as a lawyer, 
because he says, on account of the President's position and the 
fact that he has appointed so many Judges, that is unfair. He 
does not want him to go into business, because that lowers 



124 

the dignity of a place for which the citizen has the greatest 
respect. He has a curious feeHng, though he is the most 
practical of men and thinkers in other respects, that an ex- 
President of the United States can live on air. But, if the ex- 
President indulges in hot air, the citizen is offended. 

The first public banquet given in honor of a retiring offi- 
cial, in our history, was the one which Governor Clinton of 
the State of New York gave in honor of General Washington, 
the day after the evacuation of New York by the British in 
November, 1783, and this was given at Fraunces Tavern, 
wliicli happily is preserved. The next day, at the same tavern, 
Washington bade farewell to his officers, and it remains one 
of the most affecting scenes in our history. Washington re- 
tired to Mount Vernon, hoping for private life, but was speedily 
recalled to the Presidency of the young Republic. 

Now, one hundred and thirty-one years afterwards, in 
another and humbler sphere, we have an historical parallel. 
Our President retires to the island which he owns off the 
coast of Virginia, where he is the most expert fisherman and 
the best shot. 

Things are changing rapidly in our public affairs. Sense 
and sanity are taking the place of the chaos of the new free- 
dom. The wreck of the civil service by the Secretary of the 
State and the rhetoric of the President to the faithful at 
Indianapolis are making clear the way for republican harmony 
and republican success. With a personality so attractive, a 
tactfulness so rare, a common sense and executive ability so 
remarkable, governorships and Congress, by the mandate of 
his fellow-citizens, will draw our friend Fairchild from his 
island on the coast. 

Now, my friends, I speak for you and the rest of the nine 
hundred not present who joined in a souvenir to perpetuate 
this manifestation of our respect for our retiring President 
and our love for the man. It is by his wish that it is not a pic- 
ture to hang on the wall, or a cup to adorn his table, but a per- 
sonal reminder to be always with him, and, whether at home 
or abroad, in the domestic circle, amidst cares of business or 
the distractions of society, to recall the most enjoyable years 
of his career and the devoted friends who made them so. A 



125 

ring is associated with cngag-enicnt and marriage, the most 
sacred and intimate events in life; it is worn on the left hand 
and nearest the heart, whose pulsations send the hlood under it 
in continuing circles until the end. This ring, which I now 
give you, is both collective and individual, all joined, but as 
you recall your friends, you can reincarnate each and the 
pleasure he had in this token. 



Classes at Wellesley College Formerly Elected Some 
University Man to Membership of the Class. 
The Class of '90, of Two Hundred Young 
Women, Elected SENATOR DEPEW. The 
Following is the Letter Written by Him to the 
Class at Its Twenty-Fifth Anniversary, June 
7, 1915. 

Dear Miss Barrows : It is rarely in the expei'ience of a 
long life that so gracfous and grateful a message has come to 
me as that from you on behalf of my classmates at Wellesley. 
My completed eighty-one years have been blessed with sixty 
of activities in many departments, social, literary, political, 
economic and financial. 

That next year our class of 1856 will celebrate at Yale 
the sixtieth anniversary of its graduation is very interesting. 
Its work is largely a memory, and only sixteen survive, but the 
twenty-fifth anniversary of my class at Wellesley is a sugges- 
tion of perpetual youth. 

I recall with intense pleasure the (to me) memorable visit 
to you. I happened that day to be at Concord, New Hampshire, 
in the morning, having delivered an address at St. Paul's 
School. I asked the stationmastcr the quickest way to Welles- 
ley, and with the curiosity of his Yankee race he inquired, 
"What are you going there for?" I replied, "To visit my class- 
mates." Whereupon the shocked descendant of a long line of 
Puritan ancestors said severely, "You are all off, that is a gal's 
school." But from the moment of my reception at the depot 
until my departure my independence ceased and my individual- 
ity was merged. The authoritative way in which the President 
of the class assigned me my seat in the carriage and indicated 
my place in reviewing the games, as well as the presentation to 
the Faculty, gave me a sense of my inferiority and toleration 
as a mere man never equalled in my experience in my family. 
In the haste to reach you a lunch was impossible, and a 
healthy and hungry man, after twelve hours' fast, was ushered 



128 

in to the class supper. My classmates were happy and con- 
fident that they had met every requirement of the occasion in 
giving me sponge cake and ice-cream. I am sure that those 
of you who have married have changed your views of that 
evening as to man's appetite. 

Few classes of any college have been privileged to live 
and work in such a marvelous quarter of a century. It con- 
denses more of everything which makes history, adds to the 
volume of human achievements in discovery and invention, 
and increases the sum of human happiness and, in its closing 
hours, of human misery, than many completed centuries. 

But, my classmates, the unequalled heroism of this year, 
the unparalleled sacrifices for the wounded and the suffering, 
the unselfish patriotism and courage of this war are sure testi- 
monies to the survival of all that makes life worth living. Ours 
has been a glorious and inspiring period. My message to you 
is full of congratulation, of hopefulness, and, may I add, of 
affection. 

Very Sincerely yours, 

Chauncey M. Depew. 

Miss Mary Barrows, Secretary, 
Huntington Chambers, 
Boston, Mass. 



THE LESSON OF TWO GREAT WARS 

Written by SENATOR DEPEW for Leslie's Weekly, 
June 17, 1915. 

Editor's Note. — Former Senator Depezv zms actively 
associated ■with the affairs of the Government during the JVar 
betzveen the States and recollects vividly that great struggle. 
He has been much abroad, and from his distinguished acquaint- 
ance zmth European rulers and statesmen has an intimale 
knozvlcdge of events that led' to the present zoar a)id the con- 
ditions prior to its outbreak. Fezv other men are so zvell 
equipped to draw the parallel that he here outlines. 

A veteran observer who has lived through several critical 
periods is impressed with the frequency and literalness with 
which history repeats itself. The cabinet crisis in Great Britain 
emphasizes this truth. Its remarkable analogy is found in our 
Civil War. At one period the press of the North, led by 
Horace Greeley, was in fierce revolt against the management 
of the war. Generals were sacrificed and the favorite of the 
day was driven from command the next. The people became 
impatient. Results were unsatisfactory and success and im- 
mediate success the only criterion. For some time battles 
were described as glorious exhibitions of valor and patriotism. 
The long list of dead and wounded was the roll of honor. But 
when the war dragged on without decisive victories, the news 
of drawn fights,' or defeats or of retreats was received with 
horror as useless slaughter caused by incompetent leadership. 

Utterances, which in the early part of the w'ar would have 
been treasonable, became later the angry expression of the 
people demanding a sacrifice. This culminated in a peace 
movement w^hich w^as dangerous to the Union and encouraged 
the Confederates. Three commissioners, old-time Whig states- 
men, appeared at Niagara Falls and announced that they were 
authorized to treat for peace. It was a shrewd and adroit 
move on the part of the exceedingly able men who were con- 



130 

ducting the affairs of the Confederacy. It distracted the at- 
tention of the North, which should have been concentrated 
on the prosecution of the war, and energized the South. Mr. 
Lincohi said to me he felt sure that the commissioners were 
without authority ; but when Mr. Greeley wrote that he would 
be held personally responsible for every drop of blood and 
every dollar spent if the war continued, he authorized him 
to see them and ascertain their powers. Mr. Greeley so con- 
ducted and prolonged the negotiations that Mr. Lincoln issued 
his famous proclamation giving safe conduct to Washington 
and return to any one representing the Confederate govern- 
ment. No one came. But the newspaper crusade against Mr. 
Lincoln and the conduct of the war continued until General 
Grant's victories saved the situation. That part of the press 
which at the beginning of the war was insisting on the policy 
of "On to Richmond" at any cost was the one demanding 
peace at any cost. 

I was in England at the time of the declaration of war 
with Germany. There was general expectation that Mr. Hal- 
dane, who had organized the territorials, then the only avail- 
able volunteer body to aid the small standing army, would be 
the War Minister. The campaign of certain newspapers to 
drive Haldane out and put Kitchener in as the one and only 
man supremely fitted was one of the most brilliant and effec- 
tive efforts I have ever known. Now the same newspapers 
have made an attack so fierce on Kitchener that, while the 
confidence of the country in him has been only partially dis- 
turbed, the government has been revolutionized and the opposi- 
tion invited to share the management of the war. The same 
sort of attack in the Civil War did not destroy the confidence 
of the people in Lincoln, but Generals Pope, Hooker and 
McClellan had to go. 

There was a memorable exception to the popularity of 
Lincoln. In 1863 the peace advocates were becoming so power- 
ful that Mr. Lincoln's renomination and re-election, if nom- 
inated, were doubtful. The series of remarkable victories by 
General Grant during the summer of that year defeated the 
peace people, re-elected Lincoln and ended the war at Appo- 
mattox. But for those victories the cry "the war is a failure" 



131 

would have swept the North. The Confederacy would have 
been recognized and the Union dissolved. Our Civil War 
and this frightful, savage and all-embracing European conflict 
both bring to the front the handicaps of democracy in a war 
with the concentrated authority of autocracy. The North in 
our Civil War was a democracy divided in bitter partizanship 
and with the largest liberty of the press and of speech. Slavery 
had given over the government of the South to an oligarchy 
of about 300,000 men who, in terror of injury to the system 
upon which were based their property and prosperity, gave 
absolute power to a few highly trained and able leaders. They 
controlled the schools and the newspapers. They taught the 
generation which went into rebellion both its righteousness 
and necessity. 

When these leaders decided to revolt, they could rely 
upon the unquestioning loyalty of their people. Their organ- 
ization was perfect. Their armies were drilled, officered and 
commanded by the skilled graduates of the Military Academy. 
A Horace Greeley in revolt or criticism could not live under 
their system, and there were no such independent and hostile 
critics. The result was that with infinite inferiority in men, 
resources, cash and credit they almost succeeded. The North- 
ern democracy, on the other hand, lost in the first two years 
of the war a fearful waste of men and materials from divided 
councils, confidence in untrained armies, uneducated leaders 
and inefficiency. 

Germany began this war with the most wonderful mili- 
tary organization of all the centuries, supported by a people 
trained to arms, educated to yield enthusiastic support to their 
Emperor and his General Staff. An army of a million men 
can draw upon a possible twelve millions who are trained, 
their depots for report designated, their equipment ready, 
their organization automatic and transportation provided on 
the State railw^ays. So with these resources and a unanimous 
population, Germany is embattled against almost the world in 
arms. 

Great Britain entered the war unprepared. Behind her 
available army of three hundred thousand are those who vol- 
unteer at home and the contingents furnished by her colonies. 



132 

J Icr reliance is upon recruiting, and after her noblest, bravest 
and best to the extent of about two millions have enlisted, the 
rest hold back or to excuse their want of patriotism criticize 
the conduct of the war or incite labor troubles in the factories 
manufacturing munitions of war. She is deficient in war 
materials because a democratic government under party man- 
agement will not and dare not incur the expense of prepara- 
tion for war, or the certainty of political defeat by enforcing 
compulsory service. 

I remember being a guest on one of the steamships in the 
fleet at the great naval review in the Solent on Queen Victoria's 
jul)ilc'e. The Emperor of Germany and King Edward the 
Seventh, then Prince of Wales, came on the ship. After the 
reception the Emperor asked if the ship had anything new in 
the way of armament and was told of a quick-firing gun just 
invented. In a moment he was all over that gun and critically 
examined it. Calling his aid, he gave a peremptory order to 
etjuip his fleet with it. This illustrated the genius as well as 
power of the Emperor. Had he been King of Great Britain 
he could not and would not have dared give such an order. 
vSuch suggestion from him would have rocked his throne. 

After ten months of unparalleled slaughter and expendi- 
ture, not one allied soldier is yet on German soil except in East 
Prussia and Alsace-Lorraine, and Germany has not felt the 
horrors of war which have devastated Belgium and northern 
b'rance. An indignant people overthrow the British govern- 
ment and force its reorganization, and yet if the government 
had in the days of peace tried to prepare for this war, they 
would have been driven from office. All parties unite and 
assume the responsibilities of government. With domestic 
discord eliminated and the country one, the exhaustless re- 
sources and tireless energy of democracy can prepare for an 
aggressive campaign. 

The lesson of the two wars, the present and our Civil 
War, is evident. The nature of man has not changed. War 
is not probable but always possible. No one wants or would 
have militarism established, but unpreparedness is criminal 
neglect and its punishment drastic and fearful. The price of 
liberty is great, but it is abundantly worth the cost. Wars are 



133 

too infrequent to justify any check upon the spirit and prac- 
tice of true democracy. A repubHcan government like ours 
can be a true representative of "life, liberty and the pursuit 
of happiness" and still be prepared to maintain and defend 
them. 



HAS BRYAN STEPPED INTO OBLIVION? 

Written by SENATOR DEPEW for "Leslie's 

Weekly," July 1, 1915. 

Ciz/is Ronianns sum (I am a Roman citizen.) There is 
no sentence from classic literature which was of greater in- 
spiration or aroused more enthusiasm among students in my 
youth than this proud declaration of Roman citizenship. It 
was protection to the Roman wherever he might be, in any part 
of the known world. CiviHzed and barbarous people had 
been taught that behind the citizen was the whole power of 
Rome ; her eagles and her legions were prompt to rescue or 
revenge. When the Apostle Paul was on trial before the 
Roman Governor, he might have suffered the fate of Jesus if 
he had not startled that functionary by declaring: "I am a 
Roman citizen." The Magistrate apologized, the prisoner was 
sent under complimentary escort to the Imperial City. It 
was a journey he was very anxious to make, but in his pov- 
erty could not have done so except at the expense and under 
the protection of the Government. This principle of protec- 
tion of the citizen and his rights in foreign lands and in alien 
jurisdictions has been recognized and enforced by the diplo- 
macy, backed by the army and navy, of all civilized nations. 
The arrival of the British or a German cruiser is simultaneous 
almost with the arrest, spoliations or robbery of one of their 
citizens anywhere in the world. Our Government has grown 
singularly lax in performing this duty. For a long time we 
paid tribute to the Algerian and Tripolitan pirates to keep them 
from seizing our merchant vessels and selling their crews into 
slavery. Finally the American spirit was aroused and the 
American navy sank the fleet of the Bey of Tunis, and by 
bombardment sent his palace crumbling about him. This ended 
for ever that sort of attack upon American citizens or their 
property and gave freedom of the seas for ships carrying the 
American flag. 

In the several crises which have brought Americans to- 
gether as one man to assert and defend American rights and 



136 

liberties, none aroused greater enthusiasm and determination 
than when Daniel Webster, as Secretary of State, defied the 
power of the Austrian Empire and, incidentally, all Europe, 
because all European governments claimed the same rights, 
when he used the American navy for the rescue and safety of 
a naturalized citizen. His dispatch asserting the position of 
the United States, where the rights of its citizens were in- 
volved, is a document so luminous that it forms one of the 
most brilliant pages in our diplomatic literature. With the 
disappearance of our merchant marine from the oceans and 
seas of the world, we have become as a nation disgracefully 
indifferent to the rights of American citizens who are lawfully 
resident and doing business in foreign countries. We dil"f«w 
in this resi)ect radically from all highly organized industrial 
nations of the world. Increasing populations and congestion 
in manufactures have made the problem of earning a living 
very acute in those countries. Their production has been so 
largely in excess of the needs of their own markets that they 
have been compelled to find markets all around the earth. 
They must either do this or face starvation and revolution, or 
find outlets in colonization and colonies for the settlement of 
their enngration. 

Foreign commerce, which is the life of Great Britain and 
of Germany, was becoming, up to the breaking out of this ter- 
rible war, stimulated by every art of diplomacy and the whole 
power of their navies. They have virtually kept us out of 
South America and absorbed its trade ; they have crippled us 
in China and the Orient ; they have handicapped us even in 
Mexico. Within the last ten years we have made some efforts 
to compete with these countries in foreign trade ; we have ex- 
tended fitfully but not as a recognized system encouragement 
and protection to our citizens who are enter])rising and patriotic 
enough to go into these countries and carry with them our 
products and the needs for the expansion of our markets. As 
the United States increases in population it is self-evident that 
the experience of European countries will be repeated here 
unless we have foreign markets. Unless there are American 
citizens residing in those countries, who are skilled, energetic 
and progressive, the congestion of oiu" industries is sure to 



137 

occur. There will be overproduction, lowering of wages, re- 
duction of time and numbers in our plants and a situation which 
will degrade American citizenship and lower the standards of 
American life. 

When Mr. Bryan became Secretary of State and for two 
years and a half during which he has held that office, our 
Government has been singularly indifferent to the rights of 
American citizens in foreign countries and, in a way, hostile 
to their moving into other lands and establishing themselves 
there in business. What little encouragement had been given 
to these enterprising Americans by previous administrations 
was contemptously styled "dollar diplomacy." I had a friend 
who tvventy-tive years ago went to Mexico as the manager of 
an industrial enterprise. This was not a concession from the 
Mexican Government involving any privileges which any other 
man, Mexican or of any other nationality, might not have 
undertaken, if willing to risk his money, give to it his time 
and business talent, and take the chances of competition. It 
was helpful to American industries in the factory products 
which the business require. My friend has been fairly suc- 
cessful ; Mexico has become his home and that of his children ; 
all his interests of every kind have been built up and estab- 
lished there. Every such American is an advance agent and 
permanent factor in the encouragement and expansion of 
American trade in foreign lands. If there were enough of 
such citizens properly protected by our Government and en- 
couraged as the citizens and subjects of other governments 
are, we would have what the German Emperor calls "a place 
in the sun" where now we do not cause a shadow. When the 
revolution broke out in Mexico my friend received some pro- 
tection at first from the Government of Huerta, the only sem- 
])lance of government Mexico has had since Madero. A bandit 
chief called on him one day and said, "My forces extend all 
over the territory occupied by your plants. We are here, there 
and everywhere; we can destroy your property; we are 
ligliting Huerta and therefore we are allies of the United 
States, but we have to be supported. A monthly sum and 
your extended lines are safe." The sum wa'S moderate because, 
the bandit chief said, "We are ])ractically in alliance and fight- 



138 

ing your battles, and so I am treating you much better than I 
am the big French mine near here, because under the Monroe 
Doctrine the United States will not permit France to interfere, 
and so I am taking the whole output." Another bandit came 
who drove out this one and the American manager, who left 
his assistant, a Mexican, in charge. The second bandit de- 
manded five hundred dollars the first day, one thousand the' 
next day, and two thousand the third, and this not forthcom- 
ing immediately escorted the manager to the cemetery, placed 
him against a tombstone and shot him. The American man- 
ager, my friend, went to the American Embassy and was 
told that all that could be done for him by the American 
Government, his own government, was to give a ticket home 
to the United States for himself and family. He had no 
home in the United States nor any occupation with which to 
support his family. He had been absent a quarter of a cen- 
tury. Another American, formerly an engineer in our rail- 
way service, called on me and said that with a German engi- 
neer he had been in the service of a big mining company in 
Mexico. They had each accumulated about fifteen thousand 
dollars worth of property. Their property was taken from 
them and they fled with their families to Mexico City. Each 
appealed for help to his Embassy. The American was in- 
formed that nothing could be done for him except to give him 
transportation to the United States. The German Embassy 
recovered full damages for the German. 

I do not want to do any injustice, but I have been told by 
several who have appealed to the State Department, and whose 
cases were somewhat similar, that they have been received 
coldly and practically informed that the place for an Ameri- 
can was in his own country and that when he went to a foreign 
country and established himself there in business, he did so 
at his own risk. Unless the old Roman doctrine becomes the 
established rule of the United States, unless the American flag 
means as much to the American citizen who is doing business 
in foreign countries as the British or the German flag does to 
tiie subjects of those countries in foreign lands, our Pan- 
American and other Congresses and Conventions, with the 
rejjresentativcs of those coimtries for the purpose of promot- 



139 

ing trade and inter-communication, have no practical value, 
but are only interesting! and entertaining opportunities for the 
rainbow and aurora borealis of international oratory. 

We have had in my time two resignations of Secretaries 
of State, each of them very dramatic and sensational at the 
time. Salmon F. Chase was Secretary of the Treasury when 
he resigned from Lincoln's Cabinet. The position of Secretary 
of the Treasury was then quite the most important on account 
of our financial troubles in government. I was in Washington 
at the time, being there on official business connected with my 
position as Secretary of State of New York. I was a devoted 
and enthusiastic friend of Secretary of State Seward and so 
knew much of what was going on in the inner confidences of 
the Cabinet. There was an intense antagonism between Seward 
and Chase. Chase had been conspiring for over two years to 
prevent Lincoln's renomination and secure the nomination for 
himself. For that purpose he had placed himself at the head 
of the ultra-radical element of the party. Mr. Lincoln knew 
perfectly every move Chase was making and the hollowness 
of his professions of loyalty. Notwithstanding this, when 
Chase had resigned before because Lincoln had refused to do 
as he had advised, Mr. Lincoln declined to accept his resigna- 
tion and modified his policy, which was largely political as to 
appointments, to gratify Chase; but when Chase, with a great 
flourish of trumpets and a spectacular appeal to the country, 
sent in his second resignation, to his amazement and disgust 
Mr. Lincoln accepted it. The country rallied behind Lincoln 
and, except that in his magnanimity and great-heartedness, Mr. 
Lincoln made Salmon P. Chase Chief Justice of the Supreme 
Court of the United States, he would have dropped out of 
sight. 

The second resignation was that of James G. Blaine from 
the Cabinet of President Harrison. I was intimate with Mr. 
Blaine and very fond of him. Though he was the head of Mr. 
Harrison's Cabinet, he permitted himself to be put forward in 
the Republican National Convention as a candidate against his 
chief. Mr. Blaine was at the time a very sick man. Mr. 
Harrison had asked me to be his convention and floor man- 
ager at Minneapolis where the Convention met. I called upon 



140 

Mr. Blaine, told him the President's request and said to him, 
"My friendship with you is such that I will not take this 
place or assume this responsihility without your consent." Me 
said, "You have my entire approval ; under no circumstances 
will 1 he a candidate; my health is such I could not survive 
the campaign." Of course, he resigned before Mr. Harri- 
son's renomination and died in a few months. Mr. Harrison 
offered me his place, which I felt compelled to decline. 

Now comes the resignation of Mr. Bryan. When one 
has reached my time of life and been active in aft'airs from 
the time he reached his majority, precedents and historical 
I^arallels g'reatly interest him. In the Mexican war, in the 
War of Rebellion, in the Spanish war, the actions and senti- 
ments of the people have always been the same. They rally 
around the President. They do this without regard to party 
affiliations or approval or disapproval of his other policies, 
measures and administrative acts. The President represents 
for the time being the honor and integrity, the rights and safety 
of the country. The people brush aside with impatience and 
anger any effort, even from their greatest idol, which they think 
may embarrass him. I remember as if it were yesterday Ho- 
ratio Seymour, one of the ablest and most brilliant statesmen 
of his i)eriod, who had carried the State of New York and 
been elected Governor, declared against Lincoln's emancipation 
proclamation and other drastic movements to prosecute the 
war. Governor Seymour believed the policies of Lincoln sub- 
versive of the Constitution, of the reserved rights of the States 
and the liberty of the individual. He was defeated for Gov- 
ernor and subsequently for President. The views which he 
advocated had been the doctrine taught him by a democratic 
father and which had practically governed the country almost 
since its organization. But in the minds of the people they 
were obstructions to what they believed to be the President's 
purpose — the preservation of the Union, or that all else was 
Udtliing when there was danger to union and liberty, "one and 
inseparable, now and forever." 

So now, when American ships have been torpedoed and 
sunk, and American men, women and children rightfully and 
lawfulh' iin llie ocean have been killed — the reasons given at 



141 

length by Mr. Bryan for his resignation have no weiglit. They 
arc carefully but regretfully read. Peace platitudes, sidc- 
stei)ping the facts, other possible considerations, near or re- 
mote, do not for a moment obscure or divert American opinion. 
It goes directly to the mark, like a bullet from the rifle of a 
frontiersman of the Revolution. 

The President has stated the American position and the 
American demand, and, impatient of argument or delay, the 
l^eople support him. 



Speech of HON. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW at the 
Celebration of the Fourth of July, 1915, White 
Sulphur Springs, W. Va. 

Ladies and Gentlemen: When the Committee called 
upon me this morning with the request that I make the Fourth 
of July address at the concert this evening, my first inclina- 
tion was to decline. It occurred to me that the Summer audi- 
ence, some on pleasure bent, and others absorbed in the cure, 
would not welcome an old-fashioned Fourth of July speech. 
Then I remembered that we are all Americans, and that wher- 
ever on this date, in any part of the world, from the Arctic 
Circle to the Tropics, from the Tropics to the Antarctic ice, 
there are two Americans, one is reading the Declaration of 
Independence and the other making a Fourth of July oration. 
Then they try to sing our national anthem, "The Star 
Spangled Banner." Both can carry the tune, but, like most 
of us, neither knows the words. 

I remember my first acute experience and patriotic cele- 
bration of the Fourth of July. It was over seventy-five years 
ago. My father, with the recklessness which characterized 
parents in those days, had given me a three pound cannon. 
]\Iy knowledge of ammunition and drilling as an artilleryman 
were limited to one idea, that the more powder you put in a 
gun and the harder you rammed it down, the greater noise it 
would make. The day was ushered in as it had been since the 
Revolutionary War, by the ringing of the church bells and the 
firing of an old continental cannon from Drum Hill. My gun 
followed immediately. When I came to, my mother was pick- 
ing powder out of my face, but I forgot the pain in thinking 
that I shared in the glory of those who had fought at Bunker 
Hill and Saratoga. 

My next vivid memory is of that old-fashioned, time- 
honored Fourth, then common in every village in the land, 
now I fear largely in abeyance. The procession, which included 
the local mihtary and fire companies, the Masons and the Odd 
Fellows, at the head the Grand Marshal and his aides on horse- 



144 

back, and then the orator of the clay and the reader of the 
Declaration of Independence in an open carriage. ' The cele- 
bration in a grove. I was the orator and had just graduated 
from Yale. The reader of the Declaration was General James 
W. Husted, afterwards very famous in the politics of the 
State of New York. Husted was a fine elocutionist. He com- 
mitted the Declaration to memory and delivered it with tre- 
mendous force and vigor. As he rolled out Jefferson's denun- 
ciation of British tyranny an excited Irishman in the audience, 
who thought it was original eft'ort, yelled in great excitement 
to the reader, "Give 'em hell, Jimmy, give 'em hell!"' 

We are fortunate in having our Fourth of July to-day 
within the borders of old Virginia. None of the colonies is 
richer in revolutionary heroes, statesmen, orators and inspira- 
tion than the Old Dominion. It was from here and within a 
few miles that Washington started for Cambridge to take com- 
mand of the Continental army. It was within this territory 
that the burning words of Patrick Henry aroused not only the 
Virginia Convention, but the Continental Congress. Every 
American boy in my time could speak that speech. I recall a 
few sentences, "Why stand we here idle? Our brethren arc 
already in the field ; the next gale that sweeps from the North 
will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms. As for 
me, give me liberty or give me death !" Within this sacred 
soil Jefferson's studies and meditations produced that immortal 
docinuent, "The Declaration of Independence." But there is 
another reason why Virginia is especially suggestive on the 
Fourth of July. Here at Yorktown the Revolutionary War 
ended, and the United States became free ; and fifty years ago, 
and here also, the Civil War closed at Appomattox by the 
reunion of the States. It is the finest tribute to the quality of 
American liberty that only a half century from that battlefield 
we here of the North and South can calmly discuss and 
unitedly rejoice in that victory. The people of the South and 
the North, each believing they were right, fought to the death 
for a principle, but fortunately the spirit of Abraham Lincoln, 
the magnanimity of General Grant, and the nobleness of Gen- 
eral Lee reunited the warring States in the same bonds as 



145 

before, with the same equal rights, privileges and liberties, and 
only slavery, now recognized to have been a curse, eliminated. 

The passions of civil wars in all times of the past have 
survived generations, but the miracle of reconciliation has its 
finest evidence in the fact that not by the bullet but by the ballot 
and the free choice of the American people. North, South, East 
and West, those who fought and lost in the Civil War are now 
in control of every branch of our Government. The President 
of the United States is a Southern man, the Chief Justice of 
our Supreme Court was a Confederate soldier, the leaders of 
both branches of Congress are of the same ancestry and sym- 
pathies. What a contrast with the heritage of hate and re- 
venge left by the Franco-Prussian war six years afterwards ! 
There the victor imposed upon the vanquished spoliation of 
their fairest territory, and a burden of debt from the enormous 
amount of indemnity exacted, which aroused bitter feelings 
of revenge. Revenge and reprisals are now reaping their toll 
of blood and devastation in the most unparalleled and destruc- 
tive war of all times. 

A serious question arises in view of current events and 
utterances: Does the spirit of 1776 still survive with us? That 
it did live in all its original vigor and tire fifty years ago the 
Civil War is a magnificent example. We must remember that 
both the Revolutionary and the Civil wars were fought for a 
principle. The grievances of the colonies against the mother 
country were not felt seriously by the people. The colonies 
largely governed themselves, but they revolted when the mother 
comitry proposed to tax them without their consent. Nine- 
tenths of them were English and had the traditions of Magna 
Charta and the Bill of Rights. The one had been wrung from 
the throne by their ancestors at Runnymede six hundred years 
before, and the other had enlarged the liberties of the great 
charter three hundred years afterwards. It was for this prin- 
ciple, violation of which might grow into oppressive propor- 
tions, but which then amounted to little, that our ancestors 
fought for seven long years. The men who went into the 
Revolutionary War were the most substantial in the country. 
Its leaders were the leaders also of the social, literary, com- 
mercial, financial and industrial elements of all the colonies. 



146 

Washington was the richest man in the United States, John 
Hancock, whose broad signature is the most conspicuous among 
the signers of the Declaration, was the greatest merchant in 
the country, the Livingstons, the Van Cortlandts, the Schuylers, 
Charles Carroll of Carrollton were among the largest land- 
owners. They all risked everything and solemnly pledged to 
the support of the principle of no tarnation without representa- 
tion, their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor. I con- 
fess to being disturbed at the spirit and temper of oin* times. 
Some of us differ widely from the policies and politics of the 
President of the United States, while others enthusiastically 
support his policies and party principles. But we should all 
be united and stand as one man behind the President when 
the national honor and the safety of our citizens are at stake, 
even if they should be challenged by all the world. 

I have met several gatherings of gentlemen from all parts 
of the country, who are leaders in industrial activities and our 
commercial and financial expansions. They are of the same 
class who risked everything and began the Revolutionary War. 
But I found that their general expression is one of timidity, 
is one of almost active hostility to the assertion and main- 
tenance by the President of our rights, if that may lead to 
war. One man, prominent in his neighborhood in the West 
and a most reputable citizen, who came to see me to find if I 
had any information as to the possibility of international 
trouble, frankly said that he would rather have our people 
retire from the ocean entirely than to have the property and 
possibly the lives of the whole people endangered because 
other citizens would continue to use the high seas for business 
or pleasure. But, my friends, it is a hundred and thirty-nine 
years from the Declaration of Independence, it is fifty years 
from the Civil War, it is only fifteen years since the whole 
Nation rallied behind McKinley in the Spanish-American War. 
Commercialism, luxury, alien elements in our population may 
obscure for the moment the real temper of the American people. 
But should an emergency arise, which God forbid, I have no 
doubt that every element of our population, of whatever an- 
cestry, native or foreign born, would rally to the defence of 
the flag. 



147 

One year ago to-day I was in Paris. I was invited to 
deliver an address on that Fourth of July at the tomb of 
Lafayette. It is an interesting fact, which I did not know 
before, that Lafayette, instead of being buried at his ancestral 
estate at La Grange, has his tomb within the walls of Paris. 
Connected with the spot is an interesting story. During the 
French Revolution many of the victims of the guillotine were 
buried in a huge pit upon a farm then some distance from 
Paris. Among them were a large number of the representa- 
tives of the oldest, most distinguished and historic families of 
France. When the Terror was over, and those who had been 
driven out of the country were permitted to return, and their 
confiscated property was restored to them, they raised a large 
fund in memory of these martyrs of the Revolution. They 
purchased this farm, built about this pit a high wall and set 
a part of the rest of it for a convent and a garden. The fund 
yielded a large income which was devoted to the building of 
the convent, the beautifying of the grounds, and a service to 
be continued forever in the chapel of the convent by nuns who, 
relieving one another at proper intervals, should offer per- 
petual prayers for the dead. Lafayette desired to be buried 
among these victims. 

At the tomb of Lafayette on that beautiful Fourth of July 
morning one year ago were gathered, representing the French 
Government, the French Foreign Minister and Minister of 
War, the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, the Senior Ad- 
miral of the Navy, and many prominent in official and literary 
France. Representing the LTnited States, the American Am- 
bassador and some hunch'eds of Americans. The speeches of 
the Frenchmen emphasized the traditional friendship between 
our two countries and the lessons of liberty which France had 
learned and incorporated in her institutions from the United 
States. The American Ambassador, Myron T. Herrick, ap- 
propriately expressed the gratitude of our people for the assist- 
ance which the French rendered us in our great struggle. We, 
who participated, felt it a privilege to pay tribute on that spot 
to the memory of Lafayette. We felt that to him next to 
Washington was due the success of the Revolution. He 
brought to us in our darkest hour the help which saved : The 



148 

French army under Roclunnl)c;ui, the French navy under I )e 
Grasse and the French gold w hich enabled Washington to pay 
his soldiers, and which also helped our shattered credit, gave 
the hope and help which ended at Yorktown in the establish- 
ment of the Republic of the United States. 

As I rode back from that celebration through the streets 
of Paris, I thought never before had I been in a city so bcauti- 
fid, so prosperous, so artistic, or among a people so happy as 
the Parisians. In less than thirty days I was again in Paris ; 
the stores closed, the streets deserted, the young men all gone 
to the front, and the city in a state of siege. While in Paris 1 
had the privilege of speaking on the same platform with Paron 
d'Estournelles de Constant, a Senator of France, one of its 
most eminent orators and one of its foremost public men. lie 
had returned from a trip through the United States at the head 
of a delegation which had visited us to promote a movement 
for international peace. He spoke warmly of the assistance 
and co-operation in this efifort of ]\Ir. Bryan. My. Bryan has 
resigned from the Cabinet because of the President's insistence 
upon our rights, which he thinks might lead to war. He has 
emphasized his opinion in a speech at a great German meeting 
in New York. In yesterday's paper is a letter from Baron 
d'Estournelles de Constant to Mr. Bryan, in which he says in 
substance that he has not changed at all his estimate of the 
value of peace which he and Mr. Bryan had preached and 
enforced upon the same platform in America. But when the 
life of France is at stake, when her institutions and her liber- 
ties are imperilled, when part of her territory is ocupied by a 
hostile army which has destroyed its cities and villages, looted 
its farms and expelled its population, there can be no peace. 
The sacred duty of every French man and every French 
woman is to do their utmost to expel the invader and assure 
their country of a peace that will be permanent, with a safety 
that cannot be assailed, and that the war must go on until mili- 
tarism as a force in government and an international menace 
is destroyed. 

While in France, on the fourteenth of July. I saw ihe re- 
view by the President of the Republic of the garrison of Paris. 
Thirty thousand of the finest troops in the world. The nacn 



149 

who foresaw the danger which threatened h^rance, succeeded 
by a mighty effort against the theorists and the peace advo- 
cates in raising the French army to 750,000 men, equal to the 
German army on a peace footing. The Clerman army in its 
invasion came within twelve miles of I'aris and then was 
driven back to the position it now occupies in Northern France. 
Except for this h^rcnch army, Paris would now be in the hands 
of the enemy, and if an indemnity of ninety millions of dollars 
was exacted from Brussels, a thousand millions would have 
been demanded from Paris, and the demand enforced with 
ruthless power. The French ports would be in the hands of 
the enemy and France helpless and bleeding at the feet of her 
foe, never to rise again. 

What is the lesson of this story to us on this Fourth of 
July ? It is summed up and concentrated in one word, "pre- 
paredness." Preparedness does not mean aggression nor con- 
quest, nor seeking a quarrel, nor undue sensitiveness in inter- 
national disputes ; but, so long as human nature exists, so long 
as the primal savage can break so easily through the culture 
of two thousand years of Christianity, as it has in Europe, so 
long is a nation committing a crime against its sovereignty, 
its liberties and its people unless it is prepared to defend its 
territory and its homes. If the doctrine of peace at any price 
iiad prevailed at the time of the Revolution, there would have 
been no Fourth of July and no United States. If it had pre- 
vailed at the time of the War of 1812, the American flag could 
never have protected American citizens upon the ocean. If it 
had prevailed in 1861, we would now have probably a Northern 
confederacy, a Southern confederacy, a Western confederacy, 
a Pacific Coast confederacy instead of this glorious Union 
which is the last and only refuge free from danger of the 
lilierties of mankind. If I understand Mr. Bryan's programme 
of peace, it may be illustrated by a story told many years ago 
liy that rare humorist, John Phoenix. He said he was editing 
a newspaper in Phoenix, Arizona. An angry citizen objected 
to an article he had written, knocked him down, sat astride 
and was ])onn(ling him. Then, said Phoenix, I got the better 
of the l»nitc, holding jiim down by inserting my nose between 
his teeth. 



I50 

It has become a habit with some of our statesmen and 
orators to depreciate the abiHty, and especially the farsighted- 
ness, of the framers of the Constitution. They say that com- 
petent as the members of that great convention may have been 
to deal with conditions in their time, they were wholly unable 
to grasp the growth and expansion of the country and its 
. future needs. The Constitution which they gave us has been 
all sufficient for every crisis through which we have passed and 
every problem we have encountered in the one hundred and 
twenty-six years since it was adopted. It has been the breath 
of our national life. While the constitutions of every country 
in the world have been altered and revolutionized many times 
during this period, the Constitution of the United States re- 
mains practically as it came from the fathers. It was sufficient 
for the narrow strip of settlements along the Atlantic coast 
and the thirteen original States with their three millions of 
people. It meets every requirement and provides for every 
necessity of forty-eight States covering the continent and with 
a population of one hundred millions. It has been equal to ter- 
ritorial expansion, to the formation of new commonwealths and 
their incorporation into the Federal Union, to the government 
of alien colonies beyond the seas and to the perils of war and 
the greater perils ^f peace. "Ah," say the iconoclasts, "what 
did those ancient fossils know of the initiative, referendum, re- 
call, working men's compensation, old age pensions, prohibition 
and woman suffrage?" They knew nothing and if they had 
known would undoubtedly have been opposed to them all, but 
with wisdom which was almost, if not entirely, inspired, they 
gave to their posterity a framework of principle so broad and 
elastic that in their administration we arc permitted to try and 
test them all. They left the largest liberty and limitations and 
restraint only of time for discussion and deliberation to suc- 
ceeding generations. Let us on this Fourth of July renew our 
faith and loyalty to our glorious Constitution and our gratitude 
and reverence to the matchless men who gave to us this price- 
less heritage. Let us all be Americans to-day, let us make 
each recurring Fourth of July a university for teaching Ameri- 
can citizenship and loyalty to the Constitution and the Flag. 



151 

There were no British-Americans in the Revohitionary War; 
our citizenship to-day and forever must know only Americans. 
Well, my friends, it is both significant and fortunate that 
this Fourth of July falls upon Sunday. In ordinary times it 
is regarded as unfortunate because, though the celebration 
comes on Monday, it is never the same, but more like a warmed 
over dinner. In this horrible war in Europe five millions of 
the flower of the manhood of those countries have been slain 
or maimed. In another six months there will be five millions 
more slaughtered or rendered helpless for life. From seven 
to ten million old men, women and children have been driven 
from their destroyed homes, their properties taken and are 
facing the imminent peril of starvation. The national debts of 
all the countries involved were at the beginning of the war 
twenty thousand millions of dollars. It is now forty-five thou- 
sand millions, and if the war lasts a year longer it will be a 
hundred thousand millions. This means a burden of taxation 
upon a people already exhausted that would have been frightful 
in their most prosperous days. It means general poverty and 
handicaps upon prosperity never experienced before. But 
while this conflagration is consuming these nations, we, three 
thousand miles across the ocean, were never so peaceful, never 
so happy, never so secure in our homes, in our families and in 
our liberty. Happily our Fourth of July, which means and ex- 
presses all that we have been, all that we are and all that we 
hope for, comes on the Sabbath Day. It is the day when we 
ofifer up our petitions at the Altar of God, when we express our 
gratitude and thankfulness for Tlis wSon ; it is the day when with 
one voice and one heart we can thank Him for our country and 
bless God that we are Americans 



Speech of HON. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW at the 

Dinner Given by the Pilgrim Society of New 
York to the Alhes' Loan Envoys from Great 
Britain and France at Sherry's, September 30, 
1915. 

Mr. President, Lord Chief Justice Reading, Monsieur 
HoMBERG, Gentlemen of the Society: We are very fortu- 
nate to-night. We participate in several rare privileges. One 
is to hear our President, Mr. Choate, at his best, after his long 
and most brilliant career. I have been speaking on all sorts 
of subjects and occasions on the same platform with Mr. 
Choate for a half a century or more. He is the only man who, 
regardless of political consequences or adverse criticism, has 
always been relied upon to say boldly, emphatically and clearly 
what everybody thinks but nobody dares utter. Pie never 
gave a more remarkable illustration of this faculty than in his 
speech to-night. The wild applause with which it has been 
received demonstrates that he uttered what everybody here 
believes and thinks. We have also enjoyed a rare treat of 
epigram and philosophic maxims of wit and humor from our 
friend Francis Patrick Murphy. The brightest dinner is dull 
without him, and the dullest a success with him. He neatly 
conveyed to us that he was familiar with French, by giving a 
translation of the speech just made by the Chairman of the 
French delegation. The success of the effort was unquestioned, 
because none of the rest of us knew whether his translation 
was correct or not. 

Lord Reading's address was a marvel in what it revealed 
by concealment and suggestion. It was a masterpiece of that 
suppressed feeling occasioned by the most tremendous crisis of 
its history in which his country is engaged, which is more ef- 
fective than an outburst, because everybody feels the force of 
the volcano and the wonderful power which keeps the caj:) 
tightly screwed on. 

We have entertained frentlemen from the other side, tlis- 



154 

tinguished in nearly every walk of life, eminent diplomatists, 
statesmen, men of letters, explorers and scientists have been our 
guests, but this is the first time that we have been in touch with 
a billion of dollars. There is no stronger testimony to equality 
than the democracy of legs under the same table. We have it 
here to-night while we. The Pilgrims, enjoy that relationship 
with these envoys of the accumulated wealth of Great Britain 
and France. The English Pilgrim Society has no standing in 
Lombard Street, the New York Pilgrims have no credit in 
Wall Street, not even in this sky-rocketing market. 

When I first came to New York more than fifty years ago, 
from the country, or, to be accurate, from Peekskill, my guide, 
who was starting me on my career, pointed out an important 
looking man to whom everybody was paying deference. He 
said : "There is a man you want to know." I said, "Is he a 
great banker or merchant?" Because I was looking for clients. 
He said, "He is neither, but he is close to capital." Gentlemen, 
by this contact, we have arrived at this enviable position. 

This delegation illustrates the upward progress of lawyers. 
Magna Charta is the common foundation of both English and 
American liberty. A lawyer wrote it, but it was signed by the 
Barons, who made their marks and stamped their seals with the 
hilts of their sword, because they could neither read nor write, 
but they were so jealous of that lawyer that posterity does not 
know his name. When I first became an attorney for the New 
York Central Railroad Company, fifty years ago next January, 
the Law Department was far distant from the Executive, but 
with the innumerable conflicting and obscure laws which have 
been passed by National and State Legislatures against rail- 
roads, the Law Department is now the largest and most impor- 
tant in the service, and no railway president or manager dares 
move without a lawyer at his elbow. 

For the first time in the history of finances, the greatest 
financial transaction in history has for its Chairman and Chief 
the head of the English Bar, the Lord Chief Justice of Great 
Britain. 

I have been, for more than a generation, attending ban- 
quets in Paris and I>ondon. At the French celebration the 
American sentiment is always one of gratitude to that gallant 



155 

nation which came to our assistance with army, navy and 
money when, without that aid, it is doubtful if our independ- 
ence could have been won. The French reciprocate by ack- 
nowledging the principles of liberty brought back by Lafayette 
and the French army, which have evoluted into the Republic 
which is standing to-day and fighting to-day as one man, one 
woman and one child for the preservation of those liberties. In 
London the sentiment is ever and always consanguinity of 
blood and the heritage in the common law, in the common 
language and glorious literature. These sentiments have been 
of incalculable value, because oft-repeated, so as never to be 
forgotten in preserving peace between Great Britain and the 
United States for over a hundred years, and between France 
and the United States for a hundred and thirty-seven years. 
But the previous century was one of sentiment. 

Genius, gifted with imagination, wrote great poems and 
immortal works of fiction, but our century is pre-eminently 
and disastrously practical and materialistic. The imagination, 
which might elevate the race by immortal epics or wonderful 
works of fiction, is engaged in invention, in wireless telegraphy 
and in wireless telephone by which yesterday afternoon the 
human voice pierced the enveloping air of the globe and carried 
on a conversation four thousand five hundred miles away. The 
day is not distant when the speeches at a Pilgrim Society in 
London and the Sister Society in New York will be enjoyed 
simultaneously on both sides of the Atlantic. That will be a 
marvelous triumph for peace. Then there will be no interval 
for misunderstanding and no excuse for disagreements. 

Now the visit of our guests and the marvelous success of 
their two weeks' campaign shows that, in the realm of finance, 
these century-old sentiments between the United States, Great 
Britain and France are turned into cash for the promotion of 
the prosperity, commerce and the financial integrity of these 
three great nations. 

There has been much criticism of this loan, mainly from 
people of three kinds. Those who do not understand it, those 
who do not want to understand it and those who have plenty of 
theory but never had any cash. These last are the ones who 
are most fearful that somebody will lose money. To dispose of 



156 

our enormous and unprecedented crops, to keep in constant 
and renninerative employment our capital and our labor, we 
must liavc a market for the ])roducts of the farm and the 
factor}- or there follows stagnation, congestion, bankruptcy 
and unemidoyment. This loan solves that situation. Our cus- 
tomers get what they want, and we sell what we are most 
anxious to i)art with, at good prices. That we should both pro- 
vide the goods and also the money t«j buy them is a novel prob- 
lem in finance characteristic of this marvelous age. It solves 
the difificulty which has faced mankind ever since leather was 
invented, and that is, how to lift oneself over a fence by the 
straps of one's boots. But the problem is solved by the success 
of that modern invention aeration. By magic unprecedent in, 
the history .of the greatest financial nations of the world, credit 
and cash become convertible, and the international necessity of 
sale and purchase proceed upon lines of unexampled magnitude 
and profit. 

My friend, Mr. William J. Bryan, is a never-ending source 
of surprise and admiration. There is no subject which he does 
not tackle instantaneously and with confidence. He has the sat- 
isfaction of having many of his theories embalmed in statutes 
when his party has been in power. The success of their prac- 
tical application is another matter. In an utterance, I think, at 
Atlanta, Ga., a few days since, he denounced this loan and said 
it ought to be prohibited because it would take five hundred 
millions of dollars out of the country when we sadly need that 
money for our own industries. Our friend, Mr. Bryan, fol- 
lowed a not unusual habit of dodging a fact to make a point. 
Why, this vast amount of money comes out of Wall Street, 
which he detests, and out of investors, whom he distrusts, and 
instead of going abroad goes into the pockets of his neighbors, 
the farmers of Nebraska, and the artisans and workmen of 
every mine, mill and factory in the United States ! 

One of the most interesting studies, to the social philoso- 
pher, is the changes which occur in the relative positions 
of creditors and debtors as time goes on. The transition is easy 
both up and down. After the Plymouth Colony, some years 
following its landing on Plymouth l\(jck, had become a settled 
community, it fuund the necessity for money, principally to 



157 

• tiglil; (lie Indians. The Colony sent to England C'apluin Miles 
vStandish, the Commander of its military forecs, to seeure a 
loan. After much trouble he succeeded by pledging practi- 
cally all there was of the then United States in borrowing one 
lumdrcd and ility pounds at fifty per cent, interest. Now 
London, or rather (ireat Britain, after two hundred and ninety 
years, comes to the descendants of those Colonists and bor- 
rows without difficulty one hundred million pounds at five ])er 
cent, interest. Of course, conditions have changed, but then 
the leading financier in the first instance was a military man, 
and military men are notoriously bad financiers — their errors 
being in proportion to their fame in arms ; but the head of this 
second commission is a lawyer, and there you are ! 

When one has advanced along in the eighties like lirother 
Choate and myself, we grow fond of reminiscences, of com- 
parisons between the old and the new, and especially of 
anniversaries like birthdays and centennials. This year is re- 
markable, most remarkable, as rounding out and completing a 
hundred years of peace between the United States and Great 
Britain, and a hundred and thirty-seven years with France. 
There have been greater causes, many times, for war between 
the United States and Great Britain during this period than 
the one, or ones, which have brought on this frightful world 
conflict. The old Romans had an idea of peace, though they 
seldom practiced it. They built a temple to Janus, the God of 
I'eace, whose doors were to be open in time of war and closed 
when peace reigned. They were shut but once in four hundred 
years. The doors of the temple of Janus are wide open in 
Europe, Asia, Africa, India and the Islands of the Sea. They 
are closed betw^een America and the United States. 

The boundary line between the United States and Canada 
is longer than that between Germany and France or Russia 
and Germany or both combined, and yet on it has stood for a 
century neither a fort nor a soldier. The Great I-akes washing 
the shores of both countries, and vVhich could carry the navies 
of the world, bear the fleets of commerce, but no vessels of 
war. 

The most critical c[uestions, full of hostile possibilities, 
have been settled by dii)lomacy and arbitration. Boundary lines 



158 

have been amicably agreed upon, wliich involved an empire in 
extent. Fisheries' rights, always a fruitful source of interna- 
tional difficulties, have been permanently adjusted, and ever- 
recurring crises on the interpretation and application of the 
Monroe Doctrine have been submitted to the judgment of 
international tribunals. Here is presented the most magnificent 
example in all history of the possibilities of peace between 
great nations when they are inspired by sentiments of justice 
and humanity. 

The peace of 1815, between the United States and Great 
Britain, was made at the City of Ghent by Commissioners rep- 
resenting the two countries. When the treaty had been signed 
the city gave a banquet to the commissioners. At the conclu- 
sion of the banquet John Quincy Adams, afterwards President 
of the United States, rising, offered this toast: 

"May the doors of the temple of Janus, which have been 
closed this day, remain shut for a hundred years." 

The toast was the bubbling sentiment of the evening, given 
at a time of almost universal wars, and which all cheered, but 
in which none believed. It proved, however, to be a prophecy 
rather than a sentiment. In February last the hundred years 
of the toast were completed and now, as between Great 
Britain and the United States, the hinges of the doors of the 
temple of Janus are so completely rusty that no power on 
earth can ever again pry them open. The two countries were 
approaching significant celebrations of this most auspicious 
event; a distinguished English committee came here on that 
mission and Americans visited the Mother country. It was 
proposed to buy and dedicate ancient monuments and to build 
new ones. It was proposed to have civic celebrations, proces- 
sions and fireworks. The war made all these plans impossible 
and also any celebration of this great event. But, I submit 
that higher and greater and more significant than memorials, 
processions and meetings is the conclusion, the successful and 
triumjihant conclusion, of the mission of these Anglo-French 
commissioners to the United States. 

We have started the second hundred years of peace with 



159 

a mighty memorial of international confidence and friendship. 
The old sentiment of President Adams materializes in a con- 
tract rich with possibilities of international peace and pros- 
perity, and the triumph of those principles of liberty for which 
the English speaking people of the world pre-eminently stand. 
The financial genius of the two countries has found what the 
philosophers, scientists and wizards of the middle ages longed 
for : The alchemy by which the credit of one country becomes 
the gold of the other, by which francs and pounds, shillings 
and pence, and dollars and cents lose their differences in value 
and stand on a parity for the preservation of that interchange 
between nations which is the surest foundation of peace, pros- 
perity and liberty. 



THE ART OF PUBLIC SPEAKING 

Address by HON. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW before 
the West Side Young Men's Christian Associa- 
tion, New York City, October 22, 1915. 

]\Ir. Chairman and Friends : Your Director has imposed 
upon me a task which is not easy. You are a class studying 
the art of public speaking. The suggestion is that you may 
learn something from the experience of a man who is a veteran 
on the platform. 

The foundation and superstructure of public speaking is 
hard work. It can be acquired. When Disraeli made his 
first speech in the House of Commons, he was overwhelmed 
with contemptuous laughter. He shouted to his tormentors, 
'You will yet hear me," and worked as few are willing to 
make that challenge good. He became in time master of the 
House of Commons and its most effective debater. 

The essentials of success are knowledge of the subject, 
lucidity in expressing your ideas and clear enunciation. Every 
man, and in these suffrage days many women, desire to 
become public speakers. People in every walk of life find occa- 
sions when this talent would be most useful. Army and navy 
officers, no matter how great their fame, would count it more 
gratifying than a victory if they could capture an audience by 
successful appeal. In our country especially the opportunities 
are infinite and the demand constant for speakers. There is 
no greater exhibition of power or of wider influence than sway- 
ing a legislative body in the enactment of laws or the defeat 
of vicious measures. This same is true with audiences, whether 
the occasion be religious, political or educational. The most 
serious popular delusion, in regard to public speaking, is that 
it is a gift and requires little or no effort. 

A man who had been successful in his business walked 
with me from an important dinner, where I had made a speech. 
He told me that his great ambition was to be an after-dinner 
speaker, but while he had secured invitations, they were never 



1 62 

repeated. "So," he said, "I have been following you around 
and to-night have learned your secret. You play with a cigar 
without lighting it. That calls attention. Afterwards you put 
your thumb in the pocket of your vest, as if you were seeking 
for your notes. That keeps the attention." I told him, "Old 
man, you have it. Get your dry cigar and vest pocket." He 
found it did not work. He could not grasp that it is not man- 
nerisms which make the speaker, but ideas and their presenta- 
tion. 

There is an old Latin motto, that from nothing nothing 
comes, and this is true of an empty head. The speaker should 
know more of the subject upon which he talks than his 
audience. He should have the ability, which can be acquired, 
of marshalling what he knows so as to present it in logical 
form and with an attractive garb. Few people think. To 
think is for them hard work. I mean by this that the average 
man and woman are absorbed in their life work or vocation. 
They give little attention and less thought to questions outside 
their immediate lives and activities. That is the reason that 
we require teachers, preachers and lecturers. It is easier to 
grasp a subject through the ear than through the eye. What is 
learned through the eye requires mental exertion to grasp, 
assimilate and remember, but the preacher or the orator does 
all this work for the hearer, and the hearers have pictured 
upon their brains the ideas of the speaker and his reasons for 
them. 

The influence of the speaker is one of degree; some can 
command the attention of the audience to the end, and some 
can excel in empting a hall. One of the best lawyers and 
most acute thinkers I ever knew was a failure before a popular 
audience. Men of far less ability were much more acceptable 
to the people. The reason was that he had devoted his life to 
mastering the intricacies and subtleties of the law for the advice 
of his clients and to address the court. He couH not make 
plain, simple, clear and attractive his views upon politics 
before a miscellaneous audience. 

Speakers may be divided into three classes: talkers, 
speakers and orators. Any man of fair education and ability 
can become a talker or a speaker, but an orator is endowed 



1 63 

with a gift. Nobody, however endowed, can be a successful 
talker, speaker or orator except by application, constant study 
and work. The greatest of painters are the hardest workers, 
and keep learning more and creating better pictures the longer 
they live. The most popular of favorites are the actors and 
actresses who interpret upon the stage and present, as living 
examples, the creations of the dramatist. The success of the 
speaker or preacher is in doing the same with his ideas. The 
leaders of the labor unions are all good speakers; their success 
is due to the fact that they can put into words and tell their 
mates what they all want and how to present it so as to have 
effect with employers and with the public. The clear thinker 
and good talker, that is, the one who is most familiar and most 
the master of the subject in hand, is most influential at the 
meeting of a Board of Directors or Trustees, at a church gath- 
ering, at a town meeting, in a Board of Aldermen or in the 
Legislature. 

Daniel \A'ebster was the ablest and most effective orator, 
not only in his time, but in the whole period of our country's 
existence. A common remark of the average citizen, after 
leaving the hall, or the gallery of the Senate, or the Court was, 
"Why, Webster said just what I think." That man had done 
no thinking, but Webster had put the question so clearly and 
explained it so plainly that the delighted auditor humped him- 
self with the idea that his head-piece was as good as Webster's. 
The result was that Webster converted the Senate, the Court 
and the crowd. Webster's presentation of his argument was 
so simple that it conveyed the impression of no effort, and 
yet, though he had surpassing genius, no speaker ever worked 
harder. In a famous debate in the Senate, which had come up 
unexpectedly, Webster arose and delivered one of the greatest 
speeches ever heard in that body. When asked by an amazed 
friend how he could deliver an address so perfect in every 
way, when it was transparently im[)romptu, Webster's answer 
was, "I have been preparing that speech for thirty years." 
Webster's memory and his gift of immediately calling into 
service all that he knew of the subject in hand enabled him 
to deliver speeches which were really thoroughly prepared, but 
seemed spontaneous. 



164 

One who wishes to be a i)nbhc speaker should first write 
out his speeches ; lie should try with short ones, commit the 
speech to memory, if possible, and if he cannot commit it to 
memory, read it. The spoken word, however, is much more 
effective. Few people are endowed with perfect memory. 
William H. Seward, whom I knew very w^ell, was a great 
statesmen and an effective orator. He told me that in his 
long and brilliant career he had never delivered a speech unless 
he had written it with care and committed it to memory, but he 
said the second reading of his speech memorized it perfectly. 

Roscoe Conkling, in the campaign for the election of 
General Garfield, delivered a speech in the Academy of Music 
which required four hours in delivery. His Secretary told 
that, while Senator Conkling spent several weeks preparing 
it, he spent an equal amount of time committing it to memory 
so perfectly that no interruption could disturb his delivery. A 
newspaper man, who sat behind him with the printed slips 
covering ten columns of a New York newspaper, told me that 
Mr. Conkling never missed a sentence in the whole speech, 
and had no notes except a few memoranda on the cuff of his 
shirt sleeve. These examples of great orators show how hard 
they worked even in their prime arid at the height of their 
success, but they had worked still harder in the early days 
before they had won fame. It is not given to everybody to 
have this verbal memory. If I may speak of myself, I do not 
possess it at all. My substitute for it, if the effort is a serious 
one, is to first write my speech out or dictate it to a stenog- 
rapher ; then, while I cannot commit it, I can follow the 
sequence of my ideas and deliver the address without notes 
as if it had not been written. The ideas and arguments are 
the same, but the language and sentences dift"er. Of course, 
that requires practice. 

The oldest example of oratory was Demosthenes and 
he was the greatest orator of his time. He lived in the 
Athenian Republic, where laws were made and repealed, 
and statesmen promoted or condemned, by the vote of the 
people. The whole voting population of Athens could be 
gathered upon the hill where stood the Acropolis. In the 
clear air of Athens the orator could be heard for a great dis- 



i65 

tance. I tried it myself when I was in that city. I stood on 
the Mars Hill, on the spot which tradition assigns to St. Paul 
when he addressed the Areopagites. There were some Greeks 
working on the road about half a mile distant. With my Peeks- 
kill tenor voice I shouted at them St. Paul's sermon, "Ye men 
of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious." 
The effect was immediate, though I spoke, of course, in 
English. They seized their picks, crowbars and shovels and 
ran towards me. I made a hasty retreat. Probably some of 
them had been in America and understood. Anyhow, I proved 
that Demosthenes and St. Paul could be heard at great dis- 
tance. Athens, with several hundred thousand people, had less 
than twenty thousand citizens voters in Demosthenes' time. His 
platform, a flat rock with a high rock as a sounding board 
behind, is still there, and he and his rivals had before them on 
the plateau the whole electorate. The best speaker swayed the 
crowd, had them adopt his policy and was made the leader, 
Demosthenes stammered so that it was impossible for him to 
speak eft'ectively. He spent days, and weeks, and months on 
the seashore speaking to the waves with pebbles in his mouth 
until he overcame the defect. His advice to a pupil, who 
wanted to learn the art of public speaking, was "action, action, 
action," meaning work, work, work to master your subject so 
that you are perfectly familiar with everything that can be 
said in its favor, and every objection that can be made to it. 
Then work to acquire the habit of explaining your topic so 
that it will be as clear to the listener as it is to you, and then 
work in acquiring the clear enunciation which is the main 
secret of a good speaker, that is. each word of the sentence 
heard. Cicero remarked that loud-bawling orators were driven 
by their weakness to noise, as lame men to take a horse. This 
brings us to delivery. The most essential tiling in delivery is 
clear articulation. Don't put the listener to the trouble of try- 
ing to hear. After one or two efforts he will stop trying and 
go out. Do not bawl. Noise is not speaking or oratory. 

The most eft'ective speaker I ever heard was Wendell 
Phillips. He made few gestures and rarely raised his voice 
above a conversational tone, Imt his articulation was so perfect 
he could be heard everywhere, and, of course, his method of 



i66 

putting his thought was not only simple but most impressive 
and effective. He had the gift, without which a speaker never 
amounts to much, of transparent sincerity. You will not 
convince your audience unless you are saturated and almost 
fanatical with and in your faith. Many a pleasing speaker 
delights an audience with his wit, his repartee, his hits and 
sharp thrusts, but makes no converts. The audience believe he 
could talk quite as well on the other side. 

At one time, in London, I heard at Westminster Abbey 
Cannon Farrar. He read his sermon. It was a classic in the 
purity of its English, the brilliancy of its thought and its sus- 
tained elevation to the end ; it could take its place in the books 
among the masterpieces of English literature. It was a coldly 
intellectual appeal to the minds of his congregation. Such an 
address demanded a cultured audience and had its fit setting in 
Westminster Abbey. The next Sunday I went to the Temple 
and heard the famous preacher, Mr. Spurgeon. His church 
was crowded, a congregation of nearly ten thousand. The 
congregation were middle-class English tradesmen, small sho])- 
keepers and mechanics. It was an intensely earnest and emo- 
tional crowd. Spurgeon, simply dressed and without clerical 
robes, stood upon a platform on which he could command the 
floor and the galleries. He knew his Bible by heart, he had 
absorbed its letter and siprit, he made you feel that the 
Prophets, the Apostles and Christ were talking to you in per- 
son. His audience was swayed by intense emotion, sometimes 
evinced in groans or shouts. In an earlier generation they 
would have been led by him to the battlefield at Naseby or 
Marston Moor to fight for Puritan ideals. 

These eminent preachers were consjMcuous examples of 
clear enunciation. No member of the congregation missed a 
word. I know some fine preachers and public speakers who 
would be much more effective if they practiced this habit. 
They apparently think that it adds emphasis to their utter- 
ances to drop the voice on the words which close a sentence. 
These are usually the key words to their thought. If the 
auditors do not hear these words, they fail to grasp the speak- 
er's thought, or if they strain to listen, they get tired and stop 
the eft'ort. This lowering of the voice below easy hearing is a 



1 67 

common fault and injures the reputation and usefulness of 
some superior thinkers, preachers and speakers. Another 
common error is to place the emphasis on every word. It was 
said of \\'cbslcr that when speaking of the Constitution or the 
Union, these words, when dropped, weighed twelve pounds. 
The speaker can easily acquire the habit of giving effect to 
that part of his sentences which clinches his thought. 

Extemporaneous spelaking, or speaking without notes, 
requires a full knowledge and clear idea of what you want to 
say. Acquire the habit of exi)ressing audibly your thought. 
Think out the line of argument you intend to follow and go 
over it many times before making your speech. At each repe- 
tition new ideas and better ways of expressing them will 
occur. It is in this way that eft"ective illustrations or apt 
anecdotes will be suggested. A political speaker's first address 
is far different from his last. While he follows the same line 
each night, the speech improves in matter and manner with 
each repetition. Do not tell a story unless it illumines your 
argument. If to the point, a story is very effective and will 
be remembered long after your auditors have forgotten your 
speech. But too many anecdotes weaken an argument. I'ew 
people can tell a story so as to bring out the snapper, and a 
good story badly told is an anticlimax and fatal. 

Some of the most effective speeches have been short ones. 
The debaters whom I met in my two terms in the New York 
Legislature fifty odd years ago, and my two terms in the 
United States Senate, were the ones who could concentrate the 
meat of the question at issue in twenty minutes or an hour. 
The most remarkable example of this is the contrast be- 
tween Edward Everett and President Lincoln at Gettysburg. 
Everett, as usual with him, prepared his speech with great care, 
had written, rewritten and polished it to perfection, committed 
it to memory and practiced it before a glass. It was the per- 
fection of art in everything which constitutes a great speech. 
But it was art. It took two hours in delivery. Mr. Lincoln 
wrote his speech on an envelope coming from Washington. 
It was a five-minute address, but with sublime simplicity and 
wonderful imagery it condensed the sjiirit and purpose for 
which the soldiers. l)uricd at Getty.sburg, had died. Everett's 



i68 

oration is forgotten, but Lincoln's speech is held as a master- 
piece of oratory wherever English language is spoken. 

When General Grant came to New York after his retire- 
ment from the presidency, he was invited to all the banquets 
of the different nationalities, of the patriotic societies, of the 
great trade bodies and military organizations and accepted 
many of them. Of course, he was the drawing card of the 
evening and expected to speak. At first his efforts were brief, 
halting and painful. lie told me his knees knocked together 
under the table. But with determination and persistence, 
which were his characteristics, he kept on trying until he could 
make a very good speech. 

Well, young gentlemen, you have here an excellent school 
with proved results. If you are so resolved to win that failure 
is an inspiration for greater efforts, you may hopefully expect 
a future of usefulness and of pleasure to yourselves and others. 



Speech of HON. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW, Yale, 
1856, at the Dinner of the Yale Club, New 
York, in Celebration of the Opening of the 
New Club House, November 18, 1915. 

Mr. President, Representatives of our Sister Uni- 
versities, Mr. President of Yale and Fellow Alumni: I 
have been for sixty years of strenuous life endeavoring by the 
alchemy of imagination as an inspiration for work to turn 
dreams into realities and hopes into success. The result is sel- 
dom accompHshed. When it is there is a permanent triumph 
for the individual for a cause or an institution. This would 
be a dreary world except for idealism, and a very stupid one 
except for idealists. I love a man whose rainbow ends always 
in a pot of gold, though he never draws enough from the pot 
to pay me what he borrows. 

These observations are suggested by the reflections which 
are forced upon me from my experience of the past and pres- 
ent with the Yale Alumni of New York. 

I was President of the first Alumni Association formed 
in this city, about forty years ago, and continued as such for 
the succeeding ten years. Our dreams during that period 
were to have a suite of rooms which should be all our own; 
our hopes, to secure a small house in a neighborhood where 
real estate had been so hard hit by residential and business 
changes that comfort would come cheap. In the course of 
time the Association, after various removals, built the Club 
house in Forty-fourth Street and merged it into the Club. Now 
to-night we are celebrating the successful completion of the 
finest, the largest, the most finished and complete University 
Club House in the world. Dreams, hopes and the wildest of 
imaginings are all more than realized. 

I extend to the Building Committee, the Finance Com- 
mittee and the Architect congratulations and gratitude from 
every Alumnus in the United States. 

Being in the directory of the New York Central Railroad, 



170 

which corporation owned lliis land, and as a member of this 
Ckib, I was in touch with both ends of the negotiation so 
successfully completed for the Railroad and the Club. The 
success of those negotiations were due to Director William H. 
Newman, representing the Railroad, and the Finance Commit- 
tee, representing the Club. I take my hat off in the presence 
of that Finance Committee. With little to bargain with ex- 
cept hopes, the way in which their lively imaginations convinced 
the hard-headed railroad negotiator that their hopes were 
realities was a trium})h of high finance, and as we examine this 
j:)erfection of their hopes in cash, and its wise expenditures, I 
am reminded of an incident in the life of an old colleague of 
mine. 

After graduation, and being admitted to the Bar, he went 
West to seek his fortune. He became a successful Railway 
President and organized a large railway system. To breathe 
again the atmosphere of his youth, he returned after many 
years to the New England hamlet where he was born. At 
night he went down to the grocery, where the elder Statesmen 
every evening held their Parliament around the stove and dis- 
cussed men and things. He was warmly greeted and the 
patriarch gently stroking his chin whiskers said, "Well, Bill, 
they dew say around here that you are gittin' a salary of 
$10,000 a year." He was getting many times that, but he 
modestly answered, "Uncle Josiah, that is true." "Wall, 
wall," says Uncle Josiah, "that shows what cheek and sarcum- 
stanccs will do for a man." 

Our association held monthly meetings at dift'erent hotels, 
had papers read by distinguished Professors in the college, and 
discussions upon them ; had the successful teams down to tell 
the stories of their victories, and in those days they were 
generally victories, and wound u]) with a sup])er praise- 
worthy for its frugality and temperance. Harvard and Prince- 
ton formed like associations. Yearly each of them had a 
dinner to which the others were invited. I recall a memor- 
able night with our Princeton brethren. At that time the 
venerable and distinguished Scotchman, ^\v. ^FcCosh, was 
President of Princeton, lie was a remarkal)le man in many 
ways, and peculiarly Scotch in his serious turn of mind. 1 le 



171 

liad gained millions of endowment and gifts for Princeton, 
while Yale at that time did not have much and was receiving 
very little. 

Mr. 15eaman, a line law\er, and the worthy son-in-law and 
partner of the then country's foremost and greatest lawyer, 
William M. Evarts, of '^y, was President of the Harvard 
Alumni Association. Ueaman said t<i me, "The evening is 
tiresome, let us relieve the situation. You attack President 
McCosh and I will defend him." I alluded to the success of 
Princeton's President in securing these then fahulous sums 
and intimated that he had a grip on the Presbyterian con- 
science, which made every rich memlier of that Faith believe 
that the only sure gate to Heaven was remembering Princeton 
in his will. Beaman, with great indignation, remarkably well 
played, added to the charge by his defense. He said it was 
infamous to say that Princeton's President had early intima- 
tions of the threatened departure to the other world of a mil- 
lionaire and shouted, "I do not believe that President McCosh 
ever sat by the bedside of a dying man and told him that 
salvation was certain only by a large gift to I'rinceton." The 
President arose to his feet and shouted in broad Scotch, 
"Niver, Niver!" "Or," continued lleaman, "that he ever sat 
beside the bed of a dying woman and gave her the same mes- 
sage." And dear old Dr. ATcCosh, with greater emphasis, 
shouted, "Niver, niver, niver, niver!" 

I recall the first Yale ban(|uet ever held in New York. 
To-night is its successor. The dimier was at old Delmonico's 
in Fourteenth Street. According to the program the speakers 
began with the oldest graduate present, and continued accord- 
ing to age of graduation. The speeches were very long and 
very dull. One eminent Divine became so unduly excited by 
applause ironically intended to make him stop that his teeth 
dropped into his goblet. 

About two o'clock in the morning, the President an- 
nounced that tiie opportunity was now open for the younger 
men. and to make their own selection. There was a unanimous 
call for a recent graduate, with a shock of red hair, red whis- 
kers and mustache and bulging eyes that nearly pushed his 
glass oft his nose. I'V)r the benefit of the elders who had 



172 

bored us so with tlieir long speeches, he said : "It is too late 
to make a speech, but I will tell a story. 

"Down in Barnegat, New Jersey, where I live, the people 
believe in the tonic properties of apple-jack. One of our 
citizens, returning from town with his jug full, saw a thirsty 
neighbor leaning over the gate and said, 'Here, friend,' handing 
him the jug, 'take a swig.' The neighbor pulled the corncob 
stopper, sampled it, and then raised the bottom higher and 
higher until the whole gallon disappeared down his throat. 
The indignant owner said, 'You infernal hog, what did you 
do that for?' The neighbor said, T beg your pardon, but I 
have lost all my teeth, and so could not bite off the tap.' " 

The other night Harvard celebrated the opening of the 
new annex to its club house in Forty-fourth Street. The en- 
thusiastic Harvard reporter, in describing the occasion in the 
morning newspapers, fell short of adjectives, and so he re- 
ported that President Emeritus Eliot received the greatest 
cheers ever heard in Forty-fourth Street ; President Lowell 
received the greatest cheers ever heard in Forty-fourth 
Street; that Joseph H. Choate received the greatest cheers ever 
heard in Forty-fourth Street, and two chauffeurs, fighting in 
front of the club house, had the greatest fight ever seen in 
Forty- fourth Street. 

This Club, rearing its storied heights to the sky, at the 
terminal of two great railway systems which extend East, 
West, North and South, all over the continent, receives its con- 
gratulations and sends its cheers along lines of railway and 
electric and wireless telegraph all over the world. It has grad- 
uated from Forty-fourth Street and hitched its chariot to the 
stars. 

There are two notable deliverances which have influenced 
vitally the progress, development and liberty of the world. 
One is that declaration in the charter framed in the cabin of 
the Mayflower for the government of the Pilgrim Colony, that 
we form a government of just and equal laws. The other, the 
charter framed two hundred and fourteen years afterwards by 
Yale College, to form a college to train students "For public 
service in church and civil state." The Mayflower declaration 
has been the cornerstone of American -liberty and the inspira- 



173 

tioii ill liljcralizing t^ovcrnmcnts all over the world. The other 
declaration has sent into the Presidency, into the Supreme 
Court of the United States, into the Congress of the United 
States, into the Judiciary and Executive Ofifices and Legisla- 
tures of all the states, in the pulpit, the press, the teacher's 
chair and on the platform men from Yale who have gloriously 
demonstrated that they were trained by their Alma Mater for 
public service in church and civil state. 

The greatest distinction of my class of 1856, while in 
College, and its most delightful recollection, is that for its 
four years it had among its Professors the most witty and most 
learned of men, Professor Hadley. In April of our senior, 
year the news was flashed over the Campus that a son had been 
born to this great teacher. We instantly organized a torchlight 
procession and with a band of music serenaded the arrival. 
The yell which came through the window, answering our 
cheers, convinced us that there had come into the world a new 
and mighty force for the country and the college. His years of 
glorious work for the public service in church and civil state 
has demonstrated that the tlien young class of '56, of sixty 
years ago, had sized up rightly President Pladley of Yale Uni- 
versity, 



Speech by HON. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW at the 
Annual Dinner of the Amen Corner, Being the 
Fifteenth Anniversary of the Society, Waldorf- 
Astoria, New York, December 3, 1915. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen : As I was one of the 
guests at the first (hnner of the Amen Corner, and, with few 
exceptions, have been present at all its successors, it has fallen 
to my lot to say a word on this, its fifteenth anniversary, as 
to the origin, purposes, and spirit of the Amen Corner. 

The State Republican headquarters were, for almost a 
generation, at the old Fifth Avenue Hotel. On the famous 
sofa in the corner of the lobby gathered the representatives of 
the press, waiting for news as to appointments and legislation, 
and impartially sizing up and analyzing ambitious statesmen 
who were looking for promotion or a job. Benjamin B. 
Odell, Jr., Chairman of the State Committee, and an invalu- 
able aid to the Amen Corner, in revelations which meant space, 
had just been elected Governor of the State of New York. 
The Brethren of the Amen Corner decided to celebrate that 
event by a dinner. The dinner was in recognition and cele- 
bration of Mr. Odell's elevation, but a guest of honor was 
Senator Thomas C. Piatt, who lived at the hotel. He had 
been for twenty years the acknowledged leader of his party 
in the State, and in an unusual way the source of power and 
patronage. While such party management has been charac- 
terized as invisible government, and doubtless was so in many 
States, Senator Piatt as an "easy boss" took the public into 
his confidence. Once a week the leading members of the 
Legislature and party leaders, both State and National, gath- 
ered in his rooms at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, and there were 
proposed and discussed men and measures. 

The Brethren of the Amen Corner were i)ractically jiarties 
to these discussions, and through their newspapers revealed 
to the country and the State the policy of the [)arty for the 
future. 

' I am sure we all remember the almost pathetic pride 



176 

with which the aged and feeble Senator laughed with his 
tormentors and enjoyed the jokes at his expense, and in the 
true spirit of the occasion, and the broad charity when others 
were flayed which characterized the man. 

We welcome here this evening Governor Odell, who was 
the inspiration of this organization. While many of those 
present on that famous night have joined the majority, time 
has so lightly touched our friend, Governor Odell, that he is 
just as hale, hearty and handsome as ever. 

Fifteen years count for little in the passage of time, but 
the fifteen years from nineteen hundred to nineteen fifteen 
have witnessed remarkable evolutions and revolutions. McKin- 
ley had been re-elected, and his wonderful faculty for con- 
ciliation, and his talent for winning opponents by always 
soothing their disappointment with a promise of something 
just as good, had almost destroyed partisanship. Cleveland, 
who had retired from office four years before by unanimous 
consent as the most unpopular of our Presidents, was rising 
rapidly in public esteem to the position in which his memory 
is now held as one of the ablest and most courageous of the 
Presidents of the United States. McKinley was sitting on and 
holding down the cap of a volcano, though he did not know 
it. The tremendous and unprecedented progress of the coun- 
try, since the Civil War, in the development of its resources, 
the expansions of its industries, and the utilization of inven- 
tions, had. produced on the one hand great corporations and 
large accumulations of wealth, and on the other a grave unrest 
and distrust, which were rapidly dividing the country into 
classes dangerous to the national peace. Revolution, which 
was threatened, was averted by regulation. The people took 
to themselves power without responsibility for results to man- 
age and control the forces which they distrusted and feared. 
Whatever our dififerences of opinion, I think we will all agree 
now that this situation and these con(liti<~>ns were best met 
by a President with the qualities and peculiarities of Theodore 
Roosevelt. 

The people were anxious for a change. They wanted 
that change through the Democratic party. They wanted 
every variety of democracy, and certainly they secured it in 



177 

Governor Dix, Governor Sulzer, Governor Glynn and Presi- 
dent Wilson. 

These conditions, so hastily sketched, were the oppor- 
tunity of the Brethren of the Amen Corner. The fourth 
power in the State, the Press, needed to be supplemented by 
an organization which without malice could hold up the mirror 
in which public men and measures could be seen as they are. 
If the Governor, or the Mayor, or the Legislator lost his 
temper because he got, with others, a horizontal view of him- 
self, his fall was rapid and oblivion claimed him for its own. 
If, on the other hand, he laughed and reformed, there was a 
future for him. Bobby Burns sang, 

"Oh, wad some power the giftie gi'e us. 
To see oursel's as ithers see us." 

Unhappily that power has been given only in rare instances 
and to very few. Hence the number of follies which have 
ruined promising careers, and the number of able men who, 
from exaggerated vanity, have exhibited their folly. 

The Amen Corner fills this necessity. It has no animosi- 
ties, it has no partisanship, and, above all, it has no illusions. 
It is never deceived by pretenses nor shams. It tries to re- 
duce to a normal size the enlarged heads of the Henry Fords 
in public life. I have seen so many promising statesmen 
exploded by their own exaggerated idea of themselves be- 
cause of rapid rise and sudden success, that I have charity 
for Henry, Ford. It is not in human nature for a man to 
suddenly grow from two dollars and fifty cents a day to 
twenty millions of dollars a year without feeling and be- 
lieving that he can put a crank anywhere into the mighty 
machinery of the world and move it as he will. Unless the 
Amen Corner reduces the size of his head, the world sees 
that the crank is in his own cranium. 

When I was a Junior at Yale College, sixty-two years 
ago, there appeared one of the most remarkable men and 
greatest orators of that time, Tom Marshall of Kentucky. 
Though a wreck, there were flashes of his genius which we 
boys, gathering around him, keenly enjoyed. I remember one 
reminiscence. He said when he was speaking to a great 



178 

audience in Detroit, as he was rising to the cHmax, with the 
crowd enthralled, a man brought him down several times by 
shouting, "Louder ! Louder !" Marshall suddenly stopped and 
said, "When the end of the world shall come and the trumpet 
of the Archangel Gabriel shall fill not only the earth but the 
suns and stars of the universe, and call before the Great 
White Throne the unnumbered dead of all the ages, enthralled 
by the grandeur and volume of the celestial music, there will 
be a man there from Detroit shouting, "Louder! Louder!" 
Mr. Ford says that he has received letters from people 
of prominence on the other side commending his effort. I 
wonder if among these epistles there is one from the King 
of Greece. If so, it must read like this: 

"My dear Mr. Ford: 

"Peace is so important to me that I wish your effort 
every success. Sitting on the fence is most uncomfort- 
able, and wabbling very dangerous. At present I am 
leaning toward the Allies, but do not know how long I 
can remain so, or how far I can go. Are you a mar- 
ried man? 

"Yours, 

"CONSTANTINE." 

As this fifteenth anniversary is rapidly passing, congratu- 
lations are in order. In matrimony, the fifteenth is celebrated 
by crystal. If it passes without a break, the family crocker}' 
is safe and peace and happiness assured to the end of their 
days. So we see in the success of to-night, happily following 
all its predecessors, a long and joyous career for the Brethren 
of the Amen Corner. As always catching the spirit of the 
hour, the keynote of to-night is pre-eminently America. 
Never in our history has it been so appropriate that we should 
on all occasions be Americans. The words of our national 
anthem, "My Country 'tis of Thee, Sweet Land of Liberty, 
of Thee I Sing," should be translated into action. We have 
no animosities and no jealousies. We wish all nations and all 
peoples peace and prosperity, but, like the lover for his bride, 
so is our affection for Columbia, and our hearts, our minds, 
our souls are for America first and America last. 



*' Keep A-Goin'." Interview from The New York 
Tribune, December 6, 1915. 

"keep A-GOIN' " DEPEW'S ADVICE TO THE AGED. 

Keep a-goin'. 

Don't think golf will take the place of a life work. 

The mind and body must be kept busy to prevent 
their rusting. 

It is not always a good thing to mind one's own busi- 
ness. 

Half of my friends have dug their graves with their 
teeth. 

"Keep a-goin' !" That is Chauncey M. Depew's advice 
to the aged. The veteran statesman, from the height of his 
eighty-one years, looked down with disapproval yesterday on 
the decision of L. M. Bowers to retire from the service of 
the Rockefeller interests because of his seventy years. Mr. 
Depew passed that milestone more than eleven years ago and 
is glad he kept on going. 

"Air. Bowers is making the mistake of his life," he said 
yesterday afternoon. "I shall be eighty-two years old April 
2^, and I feel as well and capable as I did at seventy-two, or 
at sixty-two, or at fifty-two. 

"Gladstone won his greatest political triumphs after he 
was eighty. Commodore Vanderbilt made more than two- 
thirds of his vast fortune between the ages of seventy and 
eighty. Joseph Choate, who is eighty-four, is more sought for, 
because of the excellent speeches he is now making, than any 
other man in the United States, and he is still sought by 
clients as the leader of the bar. President Charles W. Eliot, 
of Harvard, at eighty-one, is writing articles for magazines 
and delivering lectures before scientific bodies and colleges 
which are recognized everywhere as the best thought on the 
subject. 

"Luther said, in explaining why he worked so hard until 
the end of his life, 'When I rest I rust.' That is true. The 



i8o 



mind and heart are machines. They must be kept busy to 
prevent their rusting. I have known many men who retired 
from work, as they said, to enjoy life. As a rule, after the 
first year they are bored blue. Then they begin to think more 
of their health than anything else. They imagine they have 
all the diseases described in patent medicine advertisements. 
Then they take the patent medicines. And then they die. 

"To keep the mind and body active prevents worry from 
getting into the one and ill-health into the other. The greatest 
mistake any one can make is to stop working along the lines 
of his life's occupation, unless he can find something to occupy 
his time and mind which is equally interesting. Golf is a 
pretty poor substitute for a life work. The peace ship, how- 
ever — well, Ford is hardly old enough to be an example, but 
I suspect that he will keep himself cjuite as busy getting mil- 
lions of boys out of the trenches by Christmas as he was 
making automobiles in Detroit. 

"I do everything I ever did, and enjoy it just as much. 
An elderly man does not live by his own work alone, of course, 
but by a wholesome interest in every department of life. He 
must know who the people are who are keeping things going 
in the world. It is not always a good thing to mind one's own 
business. 

'T am busy from lO o'clock until midnight. It is work 
that counts. Eating and sleeping have little to do with health 
and longevity unless one indulges too much in them. Eight 
hours' sleep is enough for most people, and as for food, half 
of my friends have dug their graves with their teeth." 



Preface Written by SENATOR DEPEW to Arthur 
Wallace Dunn's Volume, " Gridiron Nights." 

"Gridiron Nights" is much more than a record of the wit 
and humor of a unicjue and happy organization of journaHsts. 
The historian with his facts gives the skeleton but not the life 
of the past. Humor is denied him. Politics and politicians 
are a peculiarly apt subject for the cartoonist, the caricaturist 
and the humorist. Presidents, Cabinet Officers, Senators and 
Representatives in Congress, and even high and mighty 
Ambassadors, have their brief time on the stage and disappear. 
But they are making history and the Gridiron catches it in the 
making and embalms it. These pages give flashlight pictures 
of contemporary celebrities and crises which present a close 
and intimate view of the human side of the celebrity and the 
sham in the crises which would otherwise be lost. It is to 
laugh — but the merry jesters are never vindictive or mean- 
spirited. 

"Oh wad some power the giftie gi'e us 
To see oursel's as ithers see us. 
It wad frae monie a blunder free us, 
And foolish notion" 

sang the immortal poet of the people. 

The Gridiron Club holds up the mirror. The victim of 
Gridiron humor, if wise and receptive, may make a wry face 
as he laughs with his analyzers, but he sees his errors or follies 
or pretences, mends his ways and does better. If too obtuse 
or egotistic to recognize himself, the gates of obscurit}^ are for 
him ajar. 

This record of thirty years of the Club so admirably 
prepared and presented by ]\Ir. Arthur Wallace Dunn is more 
than a reminder of memorable nights at the National Capital. 
It will give pleasure to the reader and be a mine of informa- 
tion and realization of contemporary conditions for the student. 

Sincerely yours, 

ClIAUNCEY M. DePEW. 



Speech of HON. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW at the 
Luncheon Given by the Pilgrims Society of New 
York to Sir Robert Borden, Prime Minister of 
Canada, Ritz-Carlton Hotel, New York City, 
December 23, 1915. 

Mr. President, Sir Robert Borden, Gentlemen: Mr. 
Choate says, introducing me to pronounce the benediction and 
close the entertainment, that I am to be its undertaker. But 
he and I along in the eighties are doing our best to postpone 
indefinitely the services of the funeral director, (Laughter 
and Applause.) 

Though Mr. Choate's speech as chairman was the most 
warlike expression of Allied sympathies yet heard, he ex- 
pressed to me a fear that he had not made himself quite clear. 
(Laughter.) After listening to the address of Sir Robert 
Borden and our chairman, no one can have any doubt as to 
what is the expression and sentiment of this meeting. In this 
it differs, and I see Judge Gary before me, from a recent fa- 
mous banquet, which arouses the futile curiosity (Laughter 
and Applause) of the world and send chills down the spines 
of statesmen who have their lightning rods up. (Laughter.) 

It is a great pleasure and a rare privilege we enjoy today. 
We are a neutral people and enjoying all the blessings of peace. 
But we are enduring from day to day all the agonies of war. 
That is because our feelings are so deeply enlisted. We are 
met in the morning with news of battles and losses, and our 
evening paper carries us into the night with more of the hor- 
rors and the hell of war. This tension is relieved by a speech 
like that which we have just listened to from the Prime Min- 
ister of Canada. It is an inspiring lesson for universal peace. 
AMiile maintaining with eloquence, earnestness and patriotism 
the righteousness of his cause, nevertheless there is a won- 
derful meaning in his statement of the fact that while in the 
last one hundred years there have been six prime crises in the 
affairs of the United States and Great Britain growing out of 



i84 

difificulties with Canada, that every one of them has been 
settled by arbitration. Several of them were more provoca- 
tive of strife, and involved larger and more productive terri- 
tories, than the causes which led to the present war or the 
whole Balkan territory. (Applause.) That shadow line of four 
thousand miles, across which only one step carries the citizen 
or the soldier, is without a fort or a sentinel, and has been thus 
for a century. It is a monument for justice and Christianity in 
the settlement of international disputes. We Yankees are said 
to have as two dominant characteristics inquisitiveness and ac- 
quisitiveness. W'e admit the charge, but we apply neither of 
these faculties to Canada. We do not want an inch of her 
territory, and we have no inquisitiveness about her, because 
we know her so well. She has the sapie ideals as ourselves, 
and has crystallized them into law for justice, order and hb- 
erty the same as ourselves. We have no other feeling than 
one of friendship and interest in their development in New 
Jersey on the south, in Connecticut on the east and in Canada 
on the north. It is singular how universal is this feeling among 
Americans that Canada, though separated by jurisdiction, is 
really a State of the American Union. . (Applause.) Lord 
Rosebery, the finest orator in Great Britain, said once that if 
if had not been for the obstinacy of George III and the short- 
sightedness of Lord North, the United States and Canada 
would have both remained self-governing colonies of Great 
Britain, and the preponderance of population, wealth and 
power would have carried the Parliament House to New York 
and Buckingham Palace to Central Park. 

Canada is developing her vast territories so rapidly and 
so wisely that it may be that in a few years the ultra-fashion- 
ables of New York who must be seen and known in London 
during the season will transfer their pilgrimage from London 
to Ottawa to find there the coveted association with Crown 
and Coronets. 

jMacaulay, in a letter often quoted, written to the author 
of the "Life of Jefferson," predicted that when the United 
States had congested populations and hunger frequent in the 
land, there would be no protection whatever for the more 
prosperous citizen ; his house would be invaded and his dinner 



i85 

appropriated by the more numerous and stronger. One of the 
great safety valves against congestion of population with us 
has been the government land comparatively free to the settler. 
Race suicide may be a danger for the future in cities, but on 
the farm the soil still produces great crops and the home lots 
of children. When the hive swarms, or has swarmed in the 
past, the sons married the daughters of neighboring farmers 
and then moved West to settle upon government lands, and in 
that way they have built up the great commonwealths of the 
West, the Northwest and the Pacific States. But government 
lands are now exhausted. Secretary Lane, in his eloquent re- 
port, says that there are in lands which can be irrigated room 
for fifty millions of people, but irrigated lands require more 
capital than the boy and his bride from the ovcrpopulated 
farm possess. Canada, with the wisdom and foresight char- 
acteristic of great statesmanship, has developed her territory 
by continental railroads and by assistance from the govern- 
ment to every enterprise and every man of enterprise who 
would develop her resources and add to the possibilities of 
her future. She has not been afraid of the genius for affairs 
or the ability to do, but has placed behind it all the help 
she could give. The result is that the wilderness in an in- 
credible short space of time has become the future garden of 
the British Empire. Now the American farmer's boy and his 
bride cross the invisible line, settle upon Canada's free farms 
and aid in the development of Canadian prosperity. 

An English statesman said to me, in view of this great 
immigration of hundreds of thousands, "I fear that they will 
carry with them prejudices against Canada and prejudices for 
the localities which they leave that may be dangerous to the 
future of the Dominion." But these American families in 
their new homes find the same laws protecting their property, 
the same laws safeguarding their lives, the same liberty of 
speech and action which they had in their old homes. The 
test of their loyalty to their neighbors has been found in this 
crisis of the Dominion. Among the regiments which have 
rushed to arms for the protection of the ideals of Canada, and 
of the British Empire, are found a proportionate number of 
these new immigrants to the Dominion. (Applause.) 



1 86 

About thirty years ago there was a great celebration which 
gathered the vast fleet of Great Britain in the Solent. I was 
a guest on a steamship used as a yacht where there was a 
distinguished company of Englishmen and Canadians, myself 
the only American. At the inevitable dinner, a toast to Canada 
was responded to by the representative of Canada, since dead, 
who emiiellished his speech by saying that Canada had more 
land, more square miles of territory, greater area and greater 
prospects than the United States. Then he got mad when I 
modestly responded in my turn that his statistics were all right 
but his territory mostly ice. (Great Laughter and Applause.) 
Canadian development of the last thirty years has shown that 
what we then thought was mostly ice were possible wheat 
fields and prospective granaries. 

Sentiment controls largely in the affairs of nations and 
the relations of different nationalities, but in this practical 
age and the immensely practical times of the twentieth cen- 
tury, materialism more largely governs and rules. And yet 
sentiment is not dead when the crisis arises for its develop- 
ment into action, ^^'e who have French blood in our veins 
recall with pride and gratitude those early Canadian voyageurs. 
La Salle, Marquette, Llennepin and their compatriots, who ex- 
plored the great rivers of the American continent from their 
sources to their mouths and mapped out the vast territory of 
North America and indicated its possibilities for settlement, 
population and empire. No explorers since in the Arctic or the 
Tropics met dangers and overcame them with more courage, 
endurance and genius than did these early Canadian and 
French voyageurs. Three hundred years have not sapped the 
vitality or diminished the courage of that race, for today, led 
by their mothers, wives and sweethearts, every man in France 
is offering up his life For the ideals of liis country. (Great 
Applause.) 

Wc are prospering largelv by the markets which we sup- 
\)\\ in the world from oui' farms and our factories. In nor- 
mal times our foreign trade reaches the value of two 
thousand millions of dollars a year. 'Jliese countries who 
thus trade \vith us and take oiu" goods and ])ay to us their 
money include every nationality in .Asia, in Europe, in Africa, 



i87 

in South v\uicrica, Central America and North America. lUit 
of that two thousand millions of dollars of foreign trade to 
all these various countries, in all the continents and on the 
horders of the seven seas, nearly one hundred millions more 
than half are with Great Britain and Canada. 

A citizen says, "Why this sentiment for English-speak- 
ing peoples?" We answer, "Language, traditions, literature, 
ideals." "But," he says, "I have learned English. I am 
acquiring American ideals. The literature of my country is 
being translated into your language." "Ah ! but, my friend, all 
of your countries put together only trade with us to the extent 
of one hundred millions less than that part of the English- 
speaking peoples which is included within the British Isles 
and the Canadian domains." 

I go down to Wall Street, not for speculation, but to 
change my investments. When I enter the broker's office 
a man comes after me whom everyone surrounds and tliey 
leave me until he goes. When I go to the bank the president 
comes from his seclusion where he weaves his webs and wel- 
comes with open arms into his parlor this same man. The 
same thing happens when I enter the counting room of the 
merchant, and the magnate of the counting room brushes aside 
the salesmen ^^■hile he greets this man. I say, in indignation, 
"Who is this royalty for whom I am always elbowed one side 
and made to wait?" And the answer comes from all of them, 
"He is our best customer." So, my friends, we greet here 
today in the Prime INlinister of Canada not only our best cus- 
tomer but our nearest neighbor and our devoted friend. 
(Tremendous Applause and Cheers.) 



Christmas At Yale Sixty-Odd Years Ago And Now, 

Written for The Yale Daily News Christmas Supplement 1915 

By Chauncey M. Depew, '56. 

You ask ine for a statement of the difference between 
Christmas, in my time in college, and the present. It is im- 
possible to think of Christmas now, without being impressed 
with world conditions. Christ preached and taught I'eace on 
Earth and Good Will toward Men, and Love Thy Neighbor as 
Thyself. For the first time in the Christian era those precepts 
are almost universally violated. Eight-tenths of the professed 
Christians of the world are killing each other and destroying 
each other's homes, families and properties. The most destruc- 
tive, as well as the most cruel and savage warfare of all time, 
is taking toll of lives every day. 

We cannot help believing, in contemplating these ghastly 
conditions and the teachings of the Prince of Peace, that the 
present war is the result of a violation long continued of the 
fundamental principles of Christianity. 

The coming Christmas, which will be here in a few days, 
emphasizes how each impresses so differently according to 
changed conditions those who participate in the celebration. In 
my time at Yale, from 1852 to 1856, the Puritan spirit was the 
dominant one. For many years before I entered college I sat 
under the preaching of a very conscientious, learned, and able 
old-school Presbyterian preacher. He improved the Sunday 
before Christmas in a sermon to demonstrate that making it a 
festival was a papal superstition, and that the best historical 
evidence proved that the event occurred in April and not in 
December. In my time, a great majority of the graduates en- 
tered the ministry of the Congregational, Presbyterian, Meth- 
odist and P)aptist Churches. 

Christmas was recognized by these denominations as a 
holiday in deference to general opinion, but rarely as a relig- 
ious festival. I caught the true spirit of Puritanism in a fa- 
mous evening I was privileged to spend at the home of ex- 
President Day, then a very old man. A discussion arose be- 
tween him and the Rev. Thomas K. Beechcr, brother of Henry 



190 

Ward Beecher, a ver}- brilliant man. President Day repre- 
sented jirimitive Puritanism, while Mr. Beecher was one of the 
most up-to-date of clergymen. Against Mr. Beecher's elo- 
quent presentation of the influence of great cathedrals, and 
splendid architecture in churches, and ceremonials, rich in 
everything which would please the eye and impress the imagi- 
nation, President Day contended that the true spirit of the 
Bible was best found in a church modeled on that of the Pil- 
grim Fathers, plainly built of boards, its furniture benches and 
the jndpit, its uses protection from the inclemency of the 
weather for the earnest Christian souls assembled, whose sole 
object was to have as little as possible between them personally 
and their God. 

Now, I tliink all Christian denominations dismiss contro- 
versy as to the historical accuracy of December 25 as the date 
of the birth of Christ, and join in universal and appropriate 
celebrations of the day. 

In my time at Yale there were no telegraphs or telephones, 
and transportation facilities very poor compared with the 
present. A considerable percentage of the students were from 
the South. The result was that most of the students were un- 
able to go home, and remained during the Christmas holidays 
in New Plaven, so that home, now universally associated in the 
student's mind with Christmas, was not then closely related to 
the day. Then, New Year's, and not Christmas, was the day 
of interchange of visits, of general calling, festivities and gifts. 

All this is happily changed, an old timer will recall many 
things connected with his student days, which have gone out of 
fashion, and which he thinks ought to be remembered, and that 
the things which have replaced them are not worthy substitutes, 
but certainly Christmas is far more enjoyable for the student 
of today. 

From 1852 to 1856 was rapidly increasing in intensity the 
anti-slavery sentiment in the country. It pervaded the colleges 
and made slavery the paramount subject in the great debating 
societies. The anti-slavery orators, among them Wendell 
Phillips, the most finished and eloquent of his time, had the 
attendance nf the whole student body when they spoke in New 
Haven. On Thanksgiving Day, when the minister was priv- 



191 

ileged to preach wliat he thought on secuhir matters, we all 
attended Central Church to hear the Rev. Dr. Uacon thunder 
mightily against slavery as the sum of all villainies. 

The resemblance between then and now is that the pres- 
ent war, its causes, its rightfulness, its wrongfulness and its 
probable residts absorbs the student mind to the exclusion of 
most other public ciuestions, but unhappily there are no great 
debating societies like Linonia and Brothers in Unity as of 
old, where these questions could be thrashed out as they were 
in my day, between those who believed slavery should be 
abolished and those, especially from the South, though there 
were many from th.e North, who believed that the institution 
was sanctioned by the Bible, entrenched in the Constitution, 
and could not be touched except by a dissolution of the Union. 

Fine debaters and public speakers, many of whom have 
since won national reputations in the pulpit, at the bar, in 
Congress and the Legislature, were trained by these debates 
in those great societies. 

Nobody believed then that the threats of disunion would 
materialize. Nobody believed that Civil War was possible. 
We graduated in '56 and the Civil War began in '61. Most 
of the men who graduated during those periods served in the 
armies ; the students from the South with hardly an excep- 
tion became Confederate soldiers and a large majority of 
those from the North entered and served in the Union army. 
The majority of them were killed. I knew nearly all of them 
on both sides, and a more gallant, devoted, self-sacrificing, 
and in its highest sense, patriotic body of young men never 
lived. The Civil War lasted four years ; it cost 500,000 lives ; 
six billions of dollars, and the devastation of large sections 
of the country. It would have ended in two years, with in- 
linitely less sacrifice of life and treasure, if the Government 
had been prepared to maintain its sovereignty. The slave- 
holding element, knowing that they were to precipitate a war, 
were prepared. Though in an overwhelming minority as to 
men and resources this preparedness enabled them to pro- 
long the conflict until they were exhausted. The capture of 
Fort Sumter in the harbor of Charleston was the first argu- 
ment which convinced the Covernmcnt, and those who be- 



192 

lieved in the perpetuation of the American Union, that a war 
was possible. Even this reminder succeeded in calling forth 
from the Pacificists of that day a cry that our erring sisters 
should be permitted to depart in peace. Had they been listened 
to, there would have been two and, probably, with the slough- 
ing off of the Pacific States, three North American republics 
instead of this wonderful unity, the United States of America. 

One of the great difficulties after the Government had 
finally secured arms and powder and ecjuipment was the lack 
of officers. The most hopeless mob in the world is a fresh 
regiment with untrained officers facing an organized army. 
This was developed at Bull Run, where the bravest ran be- 
cause there was no one to tell them what to do, and where to 
go. If the Confederates led by West Pointers had compre- 
hended the situation, they would have captured the Capitol 
with the President, the Cabinet, the Supreme Court, and Con- 
gress. 

Without discussing the dangers of war, it is well to re- 
member that those dangers are always present, and always 
will be until human nature in individuals and in nations is 
so changed by the spirit of Christmas, and Christmas is so 
embedded in the souls, the hearts and the minds of the men 
and women of the world, that their universal thought and 
practice will be Peace on Earth and Good Will toward Men 
and Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself. Wars come always sud- 
denly and unexpectedly. A note from the Austrian Emperor 
to the Servian Government, involving apparently only Austria- 
Hungary and little Servia, has led to a war which is now 
raging on all the continents and seas of the world, and among 
I)eoples of every race and nationality, from the highest civi- 
lized to the most barbarous and savage. The one wise event 
of this Christmas at Yale is the formation of batteries for 
the training of students to be officers if war occurs. The 
training itself is an admirable supplement to the academic 
course. It teaches discipline, obedience, self-restraint, tem- 
perance and co-ordination of the mind and body, most useful 
even in peace. Preparation, sanely pursued, like the police 
and the fire departments in civil life, docs not provoke but 
j)revcnts war, and promotes peace. 



SPEECH BY HON. CHAUNCEY M. DEPE^A/^ 

at the Dinner given by the Republican Club of 

the City of New York, in Honor of its President, 

Mr. James R. Sheffield, January 6, 1916. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen: This celebration in 
honor of our President, who has done so much for the Ckib, 
is a merited tribute to one of the best executives our Club has 
ever had. I speak with knowledge and experience, having 
been a president for two terms. I occupied the chair in the 
transition period between poverty and prosperity. When I was 
elected after the congratulations and festivities, a serious- 
minded committee said to me: "You have been chosen to 
save the Club from bankruptcy." It was not a hilarious pros- 
pect, but the committee and I set to work to enlarge the mem- 
bership and get the funds to build a home. Our trouble was 
the budget. The budget would show a deficiency which could 
not be made up by a war tax in time of peace or an income 
tax never required before. Those methods of democratic 
finance were not then known. Much has been written about 
the loss of influence by the orator because of the universality 
of the press. I had convincing proof that this is not true. I 
persuaded a young millionaire and large real estate owner 
that the gratification of political ambition furnished more 
happiness and distinction than increasing wealth and enlarging 
income. To have behind him a vigorous young Club like ours 
might push him upward and onward indefinitely. So he agreed 
on lots he owned on Fifth Avenue to erect a twelve-story 
clubhouse upon our plans and to furnish it completely and to 
lease it to the Club for twenty-one years with three renewals. 
With the rentals of the rooms and the increased membership 
because of this brilliant location we saw the future of the 
Club assured. It was submitted to a large meeting. A 
young member arose and in a speech of great fervor and 
eloquence said that he could not with self-respect, belong 
to a Club which did not own its own home and was, in 
a way, the recipient of the bounty or generosity of a multi- 
millionaire. The speech swept the meeting ofif its feet and the 
ofl:'er was rejected. Then President Louis Stern, whose 
optimism, persuasiveness and l)usiness ability could not be re- 



194 

sisted, secured for the Club this beautiful home and launched 
it upon a career of increasing prosperity. 

■ \\"e are gathered here so near the hrst day of the year that 
we can indulge in New Year's resolutions, prospects and hopes. 
We are the liveliest and most aggressive Re])ublican Political 
Organization in this city and rival any in the country. Our 
Party is beginning with the year the Presidential Campaign. 
In less than six months our candidate and principles will be 
before the people. Our first duty is for all Republicans to get 
together Abraham Lincoln, in a famous political address, ad- 
vising all the opponents of the Democratic Party to act in 
harmony, said Buchanan was a minority candidate and that 
the vote for Fremont and Filmore which was the vote against 
the Democratic Party represented a majority of four hun- 
dred thousand. History repeats itself. Mr. Wilson is a 
minority President and the combined vote for Taft and Roose- 
velt gives a majority of a million. The party lives and suc- 
ceeds on a few great principles. The party is made u]) of 
multitude of men who disagree on many minor matters, but 
come together to secure in legislation things which they be- 
lieve vital for the present and future. 

I have been attending Presidential Conventions commenc- 
ing with the second nomination of Pincoln in 1864. Everyone 
of them was noted for reciprocal enthusiasm among the dele- 
gates on the floor and spectators in the galleries, but the Con- 
vention of 1912 had bitterness on the floor and coldness in the 
crowd. I noted the delegations from two States separated 
only by the aisle. Across that aisle they were fiercely abusing 
each other. One said if Taft was nominated they would not 
vote for him. the other replied, if Roosevelt was nominated 
tney would not vote for him. This spirit meant defeat and 
everybody knew it. These two sides preferred Democratic 
success in the Presidency and in Congress to Republican meas- 
ures and policies in which they all believed under a rival can- 
didate for the Presidency. 

Men die, parties live. The Rcpul)lican Party has had 
great leaders with whom it has won great victories and in 
possession of the dovernment has enacted laws wdiich have 
advanced the country in peace, prosperity and happiness. 



195 

We have great leaders still, of whom the chief, Senator 
Root, presides here tonight. Lincoln, Grant, Garfield and 
McKinley are dead. The Republican Party lives and has a 
mission as important as it ever had with either of them. So 
let us highly resolve that all who believe in the fundamental 
principles of Republicanism will rally behind the candidates 
and platform of 1916. We enter this canvass with the most 
hopeful prospects. The majority of a million of four years ago 
of the American people who were then for Republican candi- 
dates and Republican principles still exist. It is interesting to 
inquire what promises and their fulfilment Vi^-ould induce any 
man who voted against Mr. Wilson in 1912 to vote for him for 
another four years in 19 16. The Democratic Party found as 
always when they succeed Republican administrations a sur- 
plus in the treasury and created a deficit. They have found it 
necessary because of their extravagance and inaptitude in gov- 
ernment to impose war taxes in time of peace and enact an in- 
come tax because of an emergency created by themselves. 
With importations greater than ever before revenues decreased. 
This war gave us a prohibitive tarifif. It called upon our man- 
ufacturers to furnish war munitions of unprecedented volume 
and value. It gave us the opportunity to enter the markets of 
neutral nations to furnish things required by them which liad 
heretofore been supplied by the belligerants. We are living in 
and enjoying this factitious prosperity. Let peace come which 
we all fervently desire and the Democratic Party be still in 
possession of the government, their theories put in practice 
even only to the extent of the present Wilson-Underwood 
Tariff will make the United States the dumping ground of 
Europe with results more disastrous than those which threw 
millions ont of employment and ruined other millions and 
led to the election of McKinley and the rescue of the people. 
There are a million or more of young voters who will cast 
their ballot for a President for the first time in 1916. All of 
us can recall how seriously we regarded our first vote for 
I'resident and how thoughtfully we cast it. That first vote 
has in it a large measure of imagination. The young voter 
looks with a world vision upon the position of his country. 
With this terrible war ever before him, he is intensely inter- 



196 . I 

ested in the activities and position of his own government. He 
sees with horror American men, women and children killed 
upon the high seas, or in our own bordering State of Mexico. 
He is alert and informed as never before, to the honor and 
dignity of our government and the safety of our citizens. 
What of enthusiasm for him is there in the volumes of corre- 
spondence, some of which has been answered, some of which 
has been evaded, some of which has received a promise, never 
to do it again, with the thing done again in a short time and 
then another letter that this was a mistake for which the com- 
mander would be punished without saying how and then a 
repetition with another letter saying the matter would be looked 
into as soon as other and most pressing things could be laid 
aside. 

A hundred thousand Americans were lawfully in Mexico 
under treaties and international law. They were active in the 
development of that country, the promotion of American trade, 
making markets f.or our products and had invested over a 
thousand millions of dollars. The present administration said 
to Huerta, who was duly elected president under the Mexican 
constitution, and had the only semblance of government exist- 
ing, "You must get out." The Navy was sent to the Mexican 
coast and the Army to Vera Cruz, arms and munitions were 
rushed across the border for the bandit chiefs to buy and Pres- 
ident Huerta was driven out. Then came "watchful waiting" 
with Villa, Caranza, Zapata and other bandit chiefs preying 
u[)on this unhappy people, their own countrymen, and upon 
Americans and th.c citizens or subjects of other European na- 
tions. The young American voter with imagination is also 
fresh from his studies of history. He has been thrilled with 
the story of the ancient Romans who made the phrase, "I am a 
Roman citizen, the shield and protection of every Roman all 
over the world." Every foreign nation knew that to take the 
life or seize the property of that Roman was to have Rome 
with her legions and her eagles crossing their borders for his 
protection. The Apostle Paul, standing before the Roman 
Governor of Judea, was about to be scourged and sent to prison 
as an ordinary malefactor, but when Paul proudly told the 
Court, "T am a Roman citizen," he had his choice to be dis- 



197 

charged or sent to Rome, which he greatly desired, at the 
public expense. 

He proudly recalls that in 1848 Martin Koszta, a Hun- 
garian revokitionist, who had taken out his first papers with 
the purpose of becoming an American citizen, was seized by 
the Austrian Consul at Smyrna and put on an Austrian war- 
ship, but by the threat to attack the Austrian, the Commander 
of the American warship "St. Louis" took Koszta from the 
Austrian and returned him to the United States. William L. 
AJarcy, Secretary of State, answered the protest of the Aus- 
trian government sustaining the Commander of the "St. Louis" 
and asserting that "the United States will protect any indi- 
vidual clothed with our national character." 

There was no war. 

Our present policy would have declared that this par- 
tially naturalized citizen had no right to go to Turkey, no 
matter what his business, and disavowed the patriotic action 
ot the Commander of the "St. Louis," because it might in- 
volve the United States in war, and that to endanger many 
citizens to protect one was not the function of the United 
States. 

President Harrison assumed the same risk when he forced 
Chili to make amends for the killing of American sailors. 

No war followed. 

Secretary Seward assumed the same risk when he warned 
the French under Louis Napoleon out of Mexico to maintain 
the Monroe Doctrine. The French army left, the Republic 
was restored and maintained law and order for nearly fifty 
years. 

There was no war. 

An earlier Administration gladly took the same risk wdicn 
our fleet bombarded Tripoli and sent the palace of the Bey 
crumbling about his ears to rescue American citizens held in 
bondage. Our sailors were released, our ships freed from 
future capture. 

And there was no war. 

President Cleveland took the same risk when he demanded 
from Creat Britain the arbitration of her disputed boundary 



1 98 



witli Venezuela. Great Hritain yielded, the Ijoundary was 
arbilrjtted. 

And there was no war. 

In June, 1904, Perdicaris, an American citizen, w^as seized 
Ijy Raisuli, a Moroccan bandit, and held for ransom. Raisuli 
threatened to kill him unless the ransom was paid immediately. 
Secretary of State John Hay cabled, June 22d, to the Amer- 
ican Consul at Tangier tliis message, which thrilled the world, 
"\Vc want Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead." The next day 
Perdicaris was released. 

And there was no war. 

But when American citizens in Mexico shout so that it is 
heard at Washington, "We are American citizens, we are right- 
fully here, we have been here for years and have created homes 
and accumulated property, our lives and that of our families and 
our possessions are threatened, we are American citizens," the 
answer was from Washington, "Let your property go, and 
w-e'll give you tickets to the United States and take your note 
to pay for them wdth the promise to do so as soon as yoit can 
hud emploA-mcnt and earnings somewdiere in your country." 
The result of this policy has been one bandit succeeding an- 
other in Mexico — murder, rape, robbery, anarchy, the ruth- 
less massacre of American citizens and chaos. 

When a powerful nation is right and asserts its rights, 
the enemy admits its error, the public opinion of the world 
ap])lauds. 

x\nd there is no war. 

There is the American Hag. it has meant tlie Power, the 
Greatness, the Freedom and the Protection of the American 
citizen smce the W'ar of the Revolution. Its Power and its 
Prestige have increased with the years. The young voter be- 
lieves in tliat flag, and believing in it. he will vote for the 
l)arty of Lincoln, Grant, Garfield, McKinley, Roosevelt and 
Taft. 



The Optimism of an Octogenarian. Addresses and 
Articles Delivered and Written by Chauncey M. 
Depew, LL.D., Approaching His Eighty-second 
Birthday. 

v\t the Twenty-third Annual Dinner given by the jMontauk 
Chib of Brooklyn, in Honor of Senator Depcw's Eightieth 
Birthday, April 25, 1914. 

At the Twenty-fourth Annual Dinner given by the Mon- 
tauk Club of Brooklyn, in Honor of Senator Depew's Eighty- 
first Birthday, May i, 191 5. 

At the Dinner given to Senator Depew by his Railroad 
Associates, in Honor of his Eightieth Birthday, The University 
Club, New York City, May 5. 1914. 

At the Reception given by the Union League Club of New 
York City, in Plonor of Senator Depew's Eightieth Birth- 
day, May 8, 1 9 14. 

As Presiding Officer at the Meeting of the Building of the 
Railroad Branch. Young Men's Christian Association, on the 
Occasion of Closing of the Old Building for Removal to the 
New, May 28, 1914. 

At the Grave of Lafayette, in Paris, on the Morning of 
July 4, 19 1 4. 

At the Fourth of July Banquet of the American Chamber 
of Commerce, Paris, on the Evening of July 4, 1914. 

The Tercentenary of the Chartered Commerce of the City 
of New York, Telling Its Story Since the Early Days of the 
Dutch and the Lesson that ]\Iay be Learned from It for the 
Future. Written for the New York Times, November i, 19 14. 

Tlie World War. Reminiscences and Remarks at the 
.Meeting uf the New York Genealogical and Biographical So- 
ciety, January 8, 191 5. 

At the Dinner given by the Lotos Club in Honor of 
Ambassador Myron T. Ilerrick, January 9. 1915. 



200 

As Presiding Officer at the Dinner given by the Union 
League Chib of New York City to Mr. Samuel W. Fairchild, 
on his Retirement from the Presidency of the Club, January 
20, 1915. 

Letter Written to Class '90, Wellesley College, at Its 25th 
Anniversary, June 7, 191 5. 

The Lesson of Two Great Wars. Written for Leslie's 
Weekly, June 17, 19 15. 

Has Bryan Stepped Into Oblivion? Written for Leslie's 
Weekly, June 17, 191 5. 

At the Celebration of the Fourth of July, 191 5, at White 
Sulphur Spring, W. Va. 

At the Dinner given by the Pilgrims Society of New York 
to the Allies Loan Envoys from Great Britain and France at 
Sherry's, September 30, 191 5. 

"The Art of Public Speaking." Before the West Side 
Young Men's Christian Association, New York, October 15, 
1915- 

At the Yale Club, New York City, in Celebration of the 
Opening of the New Club House, November 18, 1915. 

At the Annual Dinner of the "Amen Corner," being the 
15th Anniversary of the Society, Waldorf-Astoria, New York 
City, December 3, 191 5. 

"Keep A-Goin'." Interview from the New York Tri- 
bune, December 6, 191 5. 

Preface Written to Arthur Wallace Dunn's "Gridiron 
Nights." 

At the Luncheon given by, the Pilgrims Society of New 
York to Sir Robert Borden, Prime Minister of Canada, Ritz- 
Carlton, December 23, 191 5. 

Christmas at Yale Sixty-Odd Years Ago and Now. 

At the Dinner given by the Republican Club of the City 
of New York, in Honor of its President, Mr. James R. Shef- 
field, January 6, 1916. 



